Go Ask Him About Peggy
by SheHatesWriting
Summary: HYDRA knew her as M16, their most ruthless, merciless strike agent. But Steve just knew her as Peggy. STRONG T for dark scenes of torture, angst, strong language, anxiety, sexual themes, drugs etc. STEGGY (with minor Stucky included).
1. Reunion

**A/N: HELLO EVERYONE,**

 **HERE'S A NEW STORY THAT I PROBABLY WON'T END UP FINISHING, BUT I'VE WANTED TO WRITE A STEGGY FIC FOR SO LONG THAT I WOULD LOSE MY SHIT, IF I WAITED ANY LONGER. Anyway, this takes place between _Black Panther_ and _Infinity War._ So, there might be spoilers for BP, at some point, but I don't know. **

**ALSO, please bare in mind, I did not watch _all of_ Agent Carter so I will be relying mostly on my comic knowledge of Pegs and what we're told in S1 and CA: TFA. If you notice anything, please let me know so I can correct it. :) With that in mind, you should also realize, in my AU, Agent Carter DID NOT happen. With that in mind, I'll be addressing how her lack of impact within the MCU came to pass, but mostly, I'll leave that up to you to imagine the devestation that could have happened, had Peggy not been a Billy Badass.**

 **With that, I leave you to your reading. Thanks so much, guys! - Fel :)**

* * *

 _I think there's a lot of things we don't know, and, as a result, we often fear what we don't know. Fear backs us into corners, makes us bare our teeth, causes us to run away with our tail between our legs—to put it shortly, it makes us into people we aren't. And I suppose, that's to be expected, isn't it? Fear, like love and hate and anger, pushes us into the shells, onto the edges of barriers defined within ourselves, that we don't entirely understand. They are the unexplored crevices of ourselves—all we can do, then, is to attempt to understand who we are, to_ not _fear the unexpected and the unexplored, and to_ not fear _the consequence of what it means to be oneself._ – Journal of Margaret "Peggy" Carter, May 1945

Steve flipped to the last page of the short book, only to find that the editor had put together a list of acknowledgments to museums, libraries, and the Carter family, for allowing her to put this little biographical book together. He sighed heavily and closed the cover on itself, flipping it to the front to see Peggy's breathtaking face looking back at him. Bright and powerful blue letters spelled out the title: _A Woman Ahead of Her Time: the Short, But Remarkable Life of Peggy Carter_ , beneath it there was a beautiful black-and-white photo of Peggy, her dark lips curled back in a ferociously victorious smile. _She coulda knocked em' out with just a grin._ And yes, her smile was show-stopping, but her features—all sharp, elegant, glaring, full, thick, and those melodramatic brown eyes that could _break_ everything inside of you—those were what really made you stop and look twice.

He traced the outline of her face with slow, purposeful moments. "Aw, Peg…" He whispered. _You know, that if I could reach back into time, reach through space, tear open the spectrum of reality…and bring you back here with me_ , I would.

"It's nice, right?" A silky voice spoke above him, a hand coming to rest on his shoulder.

Steve looked up to see Natasha stood there, without a hint of expression on her face. Those expressionless eyes and facial features of cold and merciless beauty had, at first, thrown Steve off—how could you trust someone, if they didn't even blink half the time? But in the past years, Natasha had become Steve's closest friend, his confidant, an almost therapeutic companion through everything that had happened recently.

Steve cleared his throat, not trusting his voice to speak after the read, "Yeah, it was… I feel like I got to talk to her, one last time… Nat, thank _you_."

"Don't mention it, Rogers—the publisher about had a heart attack when I said Captain America wanted the first edition." She gave him a _hint_ of a smile—the sympathy, the soft and warm gooey stuff between her expressionless ice, showed, then. It wasn't much, but that's as close as Natasha Romanoff came to showing any sort of affection. "Now, come on up to the front, Sam, apparently, still doesn't know how to fly a plane."

"Hey, Natasha—" Sam, in response, called from the front of the quinjet, "you try flying into a fucking rainforest, with some wackass coordinates that Cap gave you on a whim, before he disappeared for 5 hours to do some ' _light_ reading.' You know what I say? _Light_ reading my _ass,_ probably found the gay section of Pornhub… _"_ He grumbled.

Natasha and Steve's eyes met and they exchanged smirks, before the super soldier followed Nat out into the front of the jet, where Sam was scrutinizing the approaching brush below. "So, this is Wakanda?"

"Straight through those trees." Steve said softly, a small smile touching his face. Peggy may be gone, but he still had one thing to look forward through all of this. _Home_. A flash of memories filled his mind—especially, in the summers when the "roughin' of the Depression" (as they used to call it) got a little easier: Bucky and him at Coney Island, the summer they worked at Mr. Farlan's barbershop as 'sweepin' boys,' or the summer they stayed with Bucky's grandparents in upstate New York, working in the field, feeling the sun on their backs, getting drunk on cheap liquor Bucky's Pops stored in the trap floor of the chicken coup… They had had so much before the War. When Steve had nothing to prove, and Bucky didn't constantly have to worry about him.

"Through the trees? Steve—"

"Hey, he's the Captain, I wouldn't argue, Sammy." Natasha smirked wickedly at Sam's resulting disgruntled expression, before he dove right through the holographic barrier trees and into the open, sun-touched fields of Wakanda.

"Well, shit." Sam remarked in amazement as he swung the jet past the thatch-roofed houses, the farmers, beneath them, waved at the sight of one of the royal aircrafts—while they sped towards the glittery skyline of Wakanda's capital city, Birnin Zana.

"Don't forget, Sam, you owe me five dollars for thinking Rogers was quote-on-quote 'full of shit.'"

"You'll get your damn blood money, woman." He snapped, eliciting a chuckle from Nat as her hand came to rest on Steve's arm. "You ready for this?" She asked softly as Sam radioed the Wakandan base below to make sure the landing coordinates were right.

Anyone looking at them would have assumed they were in love. Nat's luminous, intensive green eyes bore into the side of Steve's face with the piercing abstraction of a protective lioness. The fingers on his arm showed the classic signs of sexual tension, but that was just it: the sexual tension was there because it always _had been._ They were used to it, they functioned within it, and it was within reason to even suggest—if one dared to—that's perhaps what their relationship was founded on.

 _Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable. Yes, they do._ It was the kiss, Steve thought, where it all started. He knew they could have had sex, maybe hung around for awhile in-and-out of each other's bedrooms—but in the end, they both knew they had one goal: prove to one another that they were both _better_ than they used to be. Usually, that didn't involve the bedroom. And more importantly, it didn't involve trying to force the relationship anywhere beyond what it was—a deep, loyal, and remarkably simple _friendship_.

In fact, that had been why Nat had come looking for him and Sam, when it was all said and done between him and Tony: _You got room for one more on that ship of yours, Rogers?_ She had explained to Steve, when they finally did meet up after the 'Civil War'—as the press had been calling it—that she had realized Tony hadn't done it for the 'prodigal people of earth,' he had done it for himself. _She_ had doneit for herself. They were selfish like that—her and Stark. Perhaps that's why she was swayed, for a second, that this could have worked out—this whole "Registration Act." But it didn't. You can't be a hero for yourself, you have to do it for other people. That's why she went looking for Steve and Sam—they were her people, her boys.

She also had had a point with the 'are you ready?' business. Steve took an unsteady sigh: was he ready? _Bucky—no!_ His beloved friend's scream that followed as he fell from the ravine that day would haunt him for the rest of his life. He would hear it over the course of the rest of the war, he would see it in his sleep, he would dream it over and over and over and over again in the ice, he would open his eyes 70 years later and _remember the scream_. The terror in Bucky's eyes as he slipped through his grasp and, unbeknownst to Steve, fell right into HYDRA's jaws.

If the time came again—to protect Bucky, to save him, could he? The answer scared him because, truth be told, he wasn't sure.

"As I'll ever be." He answered her with a trying, yet reassuring smile. Natasha gave him a dubious raise of her pale eyebrow, before offering a single nod. She didn't believe him, but then again, Steve never intended for her to believe him in the first place.

* * *

Birnin Zana—"Zana," to the locals—was beautiful—beautiful in a radically different way than anywhere else Cap had ever seen. He had been to London, Tokyo, Seattle, New York, and Bangkok—all of them were different, yes, but different from Zana because these were places that had been _seen_ for hundreds of years. Because while you could recognize the towering high-tech sky-scrapers of Tokyo, be reminded of London's Underground with the vibranium trains and tunnel system, or reminisce of Seattle's Space Needle from the top of the highest peak in Shuri's lab; you also were aware of a sharp, crisp, and _refreshing_ sense of something private, yet communitive in Zana.

These people had lived in secret, unaware of most of the world's tribulations, trials, and as a result, were allowed to grow in an independent, isolated sense. Unchecked by the international weeds of other countries, Wakanda had flourished on all fronts: in technology, agriculture, combat, education, government, ideologies, religion, and most of all, _peace_. There had never been foreign blood of war spilled on Wakanda's soil, and Steve fully intended to keep it that way. He knew the risk they took in letting him here—not simply an _American,_ but perhaps, the most notable American of all time. Especially, one who was aggressively wanted by the law.

With that in mind, when he saw T'Challa awaiting him in the royal palace's foyer, Steve shook the King's hand. "Your highness," he said with a warm smile. "You remember Agent Romanoff and my friend, Sam."

"Ah, yes, the bird and the spider." T'Challa quipped with a mild, yet mischievous smirk.

"Says the guy who's into cats—which, by the way—does anyone still _not_ think that's weird?" Sam crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at the King.

T'Challa smiled at Sam in a "boy, just you wait" kind of way. "The Black Panther, Sergeant Wilson, is a representative sign of our goddess, Bast—she was capable of taking the form of a 'human woman,' if she so desired… But preferred to remain in the form of a panther—a symbol of strength, grace, and the movement of greatness. And, it would be my guess, that she doesn't entirely like to be compared to a mere 'cat.'" He winked and turned on his heel, leaving Sam struggling to come up with something to say, Natasha smirking, and Steve—having blocked most of this conversation out because of his thoughts were revolving around _one person_ —to follow after the King.

As they walked through the palace, Sam and Natasha stopping every so often to admire the view, Steve was glued to T'Challa's side, feeling like the walking was taking forever. "When did it happen?

"Last night, Shuri called me as soon as it did."

"And how is he?" Steve stopped him, somehow sidestepping T'Challa, so he could get in front and look him in the eye.

"Captain Rogers?" A young girl's voice sounded behind him. He turned sharply to see a gangly, but lovely teenage girl standing there. Dark and relentlessly probing eyes, a smile to _melt_ under, smart and decisive features, and dark-chocolate skin that was immaculately clear of blemish. _Shuri._ The girl who broke HYDRA's code on Bucky's broken mind.

And he knew exactly why, as he shook the girl's hand. She was one of those people who could have looked at a broken knick-knack, a sick person, or the complex wiring of a fried jet engine and known— _in an instant_ —what was wrong with them. Better yet, how to _fix_ them. Steve knew when he shook her hand, feeling those graceful little fingers in between his larger pale ones, that he was holding the hands of the girl who could save the universe.

He remembered he had yet to reply to her, despite the fact that he had been shaking her hand for approximately a minute and a half, now. "Steve, ma'am, please call me Steve." He said softly, trying to remember his manners. She had shocked him—this tiny, intense, and lanky thing of a girl.

Shuri raised a dark brow, a sharp little smile folded across her lips like some kind of mechanism unlocking. "Steve?" She turned to T'Challa, who was watching the interaction with an amused smile. "Does this mean I'm on a first-name basis with Captain America?"

T'Challa smirked at her quirky remark, unable to stop himself from grinning with a hint of pride, annoyance, and amazement. " _Little sister_ , Captain Rogers has come to see the White Wolf, not for your absurdity."

"' _Not for your absurdity.'_ " Shuri mocked her older brother with a roll of her eyes and a good-natured grin. "Cool it, black Shakespeare." She winked at her older brother, before she gestured for Captain Rogers to follow her. "Sergeant Barnes is in my lab, Captain—right this way. Your friends will have to wait out here—too many white people all at once can overload the system."

Natasha raised an eyebrow in response, but must have decided not to say anything, and Sam looked like he was about to protest. Before Shuri started laughing, "Just kidding! It's only a liability issue," she opened the door with the biometric wave of her hand and they entered the lab.

Steve wanted to look around, he really did. But you have to understand, when he saw Bucky— _Bucky Barnes_ —not the Winter Solder, not the half-broken and dead-inside man from Bucharest a year ago—but his beloved Bucky, he couldn't help himself. He ran to him. He ran as that 16-year-old kid, in Brooklyn, who ran down the early morning streets on his paper route, he ran as he had through HYDRA's fortresses stealing through the limey-green darkness to save Bucky, he ran as he had run for 97 years—all towards this boy, this man, his _Bucky_.

"Bucky…? Buck." He gasped out. Bucky had been sitting on the edge of some kind of medical bed, his eyes downcast, his metal arm missing. He didn't look bereft without it, in fact, he looked more whole than he had looked in the past three years. And as soon as he heard Steve's voice, his friend's gaze slowly moved up to meet his. Disbelief spread across Bucky's handsome face and a smile, one that looked like sunshine bursting through the clouds, sprang to his lips.

"Stevie, Jesus Christ." His voice cracked audibly and he was up and running to Cap, before they collided in the middle of the room.

Shuri held back in disbelief as she watched powerful muscles entangling, strangled, deprived emotional sounds elicited after a 100 years of estranged and oppressive silence, and whispered words that no one, but the two of them would ever know. She had guessed all along—one only had to know Bucky Barnes for a short time, before they knew the boy wasn't entirely riding that 'straight' track… But she hadn't been sure of Steve, she had never been sure of the infamous 'Captain America.' He had gotten her brother in trouble, dragged Wakanda into a mess, and now, he stood there in the middle of her lab—sobbing in deep, empathetic, and earnest grief into the hair of his dear friend. Both of them were sobbing, she realized. She saw the long and heavy tracks of tears on Barnes' face. Bucky's were just deathly silent. Figures.

She would let them have their moment, before she dared interrupting.

* * *

"So, you gonna you tell me whatever ended up happening between you and Stark?" Bucky asked Steve later that day, as they walked the length of Lake Victoria. The sun was setting behind the tree line, while magnificent colors of peach, orange, pink, purple, blue, and gold all blended together in a majestic sunset.

The village children were laughing and chasing each other, making sculptures out of the muddy clay of the lake's embankment, and darting to-and-fro their thatch houses in some kind of game. Steve could only guess a form of hide-and-seek? But as for Bucky's question, Steve definitely didn't know how to respond to him.

"To say in the least, we're not really on talking terms." Steve replied with a dry kind of half-smile coming to his face.

"Ooo bad breakup." Bucky teased, with that good-natured smile appearing on his face, _again_.

 _Jesus_ , Steve thought. Where had that smile been? Buried, cracked, ruined, and broken beyond repair. And yet, here he was: the same kid who, at one time, had been way too fuckin' small to fit the full length of his name. "You're actually more right than you think." He squeezed his interlocked fingers around Bucky's, with a loving, but melancholy smile touching his features. "The Avengers… Well, I don't think we're all going to come back anytime soon and sing kumbaya."

Bucky broke into a bitter laugh. "Because of me."

"No, because of the Accords, Buck, not because of _you_."

"Bullshit, Steve." He said sharply, that free and relaxed smile that had been on his face for the majority of the day dissipated within a moment. "If it was just about the Accords, you would have signed—you knew, as well as Stark, _we_ need to be put in check." He sighed heavily and tore his hand from Steve's, looking disgusted. Steve tried to hide the pain that he felt in his chest, at the mere idea of Bucky walking away from him right now. "You blew up another opportunity in your life _for_ me, and _I hate_ that." Bucky growled, pinching the bridge of his nose with a worn-out sigh.

Bucky was right. Steve had conceded, there was a pattern between being enhanced and bringing 'the hurt' with you. But that's what happened when you planned to try to live your life, while at the same time, fight off intergalactic threats of the universe. Those intergalactic threats didn't give two shits if you had Accords put in place or not, they were coming with one mission: to destroy Earth and everything you loved. But, then again, what did he know? He never went to college in political science—maybe there was a class on how to 'diplomatize intergalactic threats.'

But did he throw away an opportunity for Bucky? _Hey there, pal, my mama's got this idea that my full name's James Buchannan—like the president—but I don't think anyone really likes that, so I just go by 'Bucky.'_ He met Bucky's eyes, the same boy he had loved for a century, and walked over to him, cupping his scruffy cheek in one hand, and kissed him. "The only thing I regret, through all of this, Buck, was losing you." He whispered against his lips, before he kissed him again. Bucky seemed to tense, at first, his entire body tight with tension and fear, but then he eventually twined his fingers up into Steve's hair, and gave into him.

"Son of a bitch." Bucky whispered to Steve, when he finally pulled away.

Steve laughed—a loud, booming, joyful sound. "Come on, I've been waiting 70 years to do that, pal."

"Punk."

"Jerk."

They stopped and smiled at one another—it didn't seem like so long ago that Steve had been that asthmatic kid, who stood before his best friend, a man who was to go to war and expected to _die_ for his country. But here they were, in another country, another world, and another time—still willing to go and die for something greater than themselves, except this time: that 'something greater' was for _each_ _other_ , not the impossibly complicated ideals of a country or an ideology that neither of them really believed in anymore.

They joined hands again, before they continued walking down the path and into the shady, soft forest that surrounded the lake. They were silent, then, Steve needing to organize his thoughts and Bucky just astounded in being able to take comfort in Steve's touch. He didn't think he would ever be able to feel this way, again. Neither of them did.

Somewhere along the way, Steve started to think about Peggy. He usually did when he was with Bucky. _Look, Steve might have the audacity to call himself the Captain, but Peg's the real Captain of this trio._ Bucky had once said—he wondered if he still remembered their days together—Bucky, Peggy, and Steve. "Buck, what was it Peggy always used to say?"

Bucky gave a sad little smirk at the mention of their old girlfriend—if Steve could dare to define her as simply that. "About what? She had too many for me to keep up with."

"Something about… gravestones and wasting time." Steve remarked with a smirk. "…'There's no time in life to feel sorry for yourself'—"

"'Gravestones will do it for you…" Bucky finished with a half-shocked, half-hushed whisper. His crazy blue eyes were wildly bright, unfiltered with deep, vital realization of something beyond Steve. "Stevie… There's something—GAHHH." He collapsed to his knees, holding his head and crying out in pain.

Steve's eyes widened and his heart dropped into his chest. "Buck? _Bucky,_ what is it?"

"Remember…her…" He croaked, groaning, and looked about ready to keel over into the grass. Steve gave a swift shake of his head. "Nope, not today." He lifted Bucky easily into his arms and carried him—bridal style—and as soon as his feet touched the golden soil of the Wakandan plain, he started sprinting towards Zana.

He couldn't lose him, not this time, not again.

* * *

"Where's Shuri?!" Steve burst through the doors of the lab, sweating and breathing heavily. He had just sprinted 10 miles in under 25 minutes.

The teenage genius looked up from her work on some kind of mechanical gadget. "Captain Rogers, what is it?"

Steve swung Bucky off of his shoulder and cradled his body in his arms. "He's…" Bucky's eyes were still wide, still overwhelmingly blue—an unnatural, unstable blue. He was whispering something into the air, something so soft that it couldn't be heard unless you placed your ear right up to his lips. His forehead was creased in sharp, unregistering pain, while his hands were shaking with terror, with turmoil, with _agony_.

Shuri rushed over to the broken man already madly typing into her high-tech watch, as a stretcher unlatched itself from the wall and swung itself over to them, which Bucky fell right onto with an almost magnetic force. "Out of the way, Steve." She said firmly, pushing Cap to the right so she would have room to work. The side arm of the stretcher, reached out and pulled Bucky's shirt open with threateningly accuracy. Another machine extended from the ceiling of the lab and began to hook Bucky's head up to a massive computer, one that Shuri was already working at.

She typed madly into the controls, speaking beautiful, tribal Wakandan into the microphone to make the machines work _faster_. Steve could only watch with horror as Shuri's lab assistants rushed to help her, moved Bucky forward, and aided the robotic arms in stripping him. And then, if that wasn't traumatic enough, the computer screen turned on and an image started to appear—staticky and grainy, but Steve knew who it was immediately. He felt his heart freeze in his chest. Everything froze—the whole world _froze._

Because there she was—in a tight-fitting leather jacket, a semi-automatic rifle swung upwards into the sky, her face, gaunter than he remembered, looked with that same superior, ferocious energy gazing back at Steve. Her curls—where were her curls?—were gone, seemingly stripped away, as if they had never been there in the first place. But it was her, it was _Peggy_.

"Captain Rogers, you need to leave—the princess will come to you, when your friend is stable." He heard someone say something beside him, but he could only be led away from the image of 'his best girl' staring back at him with that shockingly beautiful face.

* * *

Steve had tried to stay awake, wanting to know how Bucky was doing. He figured, if anything had gone drastically wrong, someone would have told him something. So, he started reading Peggy's book again, feeling desperately lost without her quiet and steady words there to ground him. But it wasn't long before he found himself nodding off, the book slipping from his hand and onto the floor with a soft _boom_. For once, Steve didn't wake up.

That night, he dreamed of Peggy.

 _They were laying on a beach in Southern France. Bucky's side resting against Steve's arm, while Peggy was squeezed in between the two of them. A fire crackled softly behind them, illuminating the darkness of the world around them, making the November air not so cold._

" _So, when all this is done—the war and the SSR business—what do you think you'll do?" Steve had asked her, when Commander Phillips had given them the night off, for once. "Anything to go back to?"_

 _Peggy had smirked. "Because you don't think I'm American?" She raised a sharp brow at him, narrowing her chocolate brown eyes into his._

" _I mean…you're accent uh… It doesn't really seem like it's…" Steve had nervously tried to cover up his mistake. Maybe, there was a part of America where they spoke like Peggy—was there? He couldn't be sure, but he had probably just offended her._

" _Steven, don't be a bloody idiot." She smiled warmly, then, her sharp eyebrow sinking down off of her forehead. She covered his hand with hers, as they drew closer to the fire. "I'm from London, but considering, everything I loved about London is gone… I have nothing to go back to."_

 _Steve felt his heart sting for her, he squeezed her hand. "No family?"_

" _A sister, but that's about it, darling. And you, Captain, since you're feeling so interrogative: anything to go back to?"_

" _Well, I guess Brooklyn, but… I mean, if I don't go back with Bucky, there's not really a point in going back."_

" _Mmm… Home's not really home without the people, is it?"_

" _No, it's not."_

 _They were silent for a long time, Peggy came to rest her head on Steve's chest as they stared up at the empty sky. There were no stars, no moon, just dark, foreboding clouds. She closed her eyes, her head tilted sideways, at some point, as she went limp with sleep. Steve ran his fingers through her hair, watching the sky. Why couldn't there have been any stars? The one night he had off from the War, and there weren't even stars to get lost in._

 _Sometimes, he wished he could be back home. You could always see the stars in Brooklyn, especially, when you were standing out on the docks over the Bay. But home's a ways away, innit? He looked over at Bucky's sleeping form across from him. He had fallen asleep before the sky had even gone dark. Peggy had wanted to pour booze over his boot and set it on fire, but Steve wouldn't let her. He needed sleep, they both did._

 _And Steve? He just wanted to see the stars._

 _And then, Steve's dream jumped, and they were, suddenly, in Trafalgar Square, in the heart of London. Peggy had dragged Steve through the crowds on that Christmas night 1945, where people—for once, were dancing and laughing, enjoying the taste of watered down coffee grounds and hot cocoa. The Square was beautiful, Steve remembered, despite being in ruins. With the great columns of the National Gallery, knocked down and the buildings surrounding the square filled with bullet holes and gaping notches left from canons. The locals had lit the old gas lanterns stored in basements, cellars, and attics, allowing light to fill the square with warmth and soft light they all thought was long-gone once Hitler had decided to douse all the lights of Europe._

 _A group of carolers from Westminster Abbey had come and started to sing_ O Holy Night _, while people grew closer and mourned the empty spaces left by their loved ones, the gaps in their hearts left by the 'missings in actions,' and cried in joy for the night they had left with that one special person. The melody carried through the crowds joined there, heartbreaking melancholic, but so incredibly hopeful for the days ahead._

" _You wanna dance?" Steve had asked Peg with a small, yet shy smile on his face._

 _Peggy, caught in a moment of nostalgia, it seemed, turned to look at him with a heartbreaking look on her face. "My father proposed to my mother, right there." She said softly, pointing to a particularly ruined spot. There were tears in her eyes for a split second, before she turned sharply away from him. "It was a ridiculous idea to come here, Captain, I apologize."_

 _Steve felt his heart clench, at the mention of her parents. Both dead, both gone forever, and this had been where their story first began. The story of Peggy. He frowned at the thought of it. "Peg, hey…" He said softly, reaching for her arm—she was tense and he could see, despite her thick layers of jackets and scarves, she was shivering. But he guessed it wasn't from the cold._

 _He brought her into him, enfolding her against him as he leaned his head against hers. "Let's… Let's dance, okay?" He asked her as she buried her face into his neck. Her nose was cold against the heat of his neck. She nodded as he began to move them in slow, syncopated movements. He was terrible at this, but Peggy didn't seem to mind._

 _It started to snow, big and ashy-colored snowflakes from the smoke overhead. They landed in a crown around Peggy's hair as she still hid in the confines of his jacket. He had never seen her so…defeated? No, this wasn't defeat. This was_ fear _. She was afraid to except that this is what her home had truly become. "Tell me, doll, if you could be anyone else in the whole world, who would you be?" He asked, desperate to distract her._

 _She paused, causing Steve to stop and simply hold her close to him. She was silent for a long time, leaving only the sounds of people laughing and the carolers to move onto the next song,_ Come All Ye Faithful _. "It may be agony and ruins and hellfire, but I don't think I would want to be anyone else, but who I am, right now, in this moment, Steven." She said softly, looking strangely content for a moment. She finally met his eyes, then, and like a raising Phoenix from the ashes, her brown eyes came_ alive. _They burrowed into his, not seeking comfort or validation, but to_ dare _him to respond to her differently, to_ oppose _her._

 _Steve chuckled, he should have known. "Not even a man?"_

"Especially, _not a man. I am the master of myself, Captain, why spend time wishing to be anyone else? Why, there's no time in life to waste feeling sorry for yourself," she twisted his arm so he could gracefully spin her back to him, "gravestones can do that for you." She winked at him, before she cupped his face in her hands and reached up to plant a kiss on his lips._

 _He brought his lips down to her and held her against him, on that cold and wintery night. He almost would have believed that that had been real, that he was back with her, back in the time he belonged... Had it not been for_ the lack of stars shining in the sky.

Steve awoke with a jolt, breathing heavily and sweating profusely against the sheets of the bed. He got up, immediately knowing sleep wasn't an option, anymore. He threw on an old SHIELD t-shirt and a pair of athletic shorts. He didn't really want anyone in the royal family to see him walking around in his briefs. He exited his room and walked down the hall towards Shuri's lab. He needed to see Bucky, even if he wasn't awake.

When he reached the biometric scan, he placed his hand on the panel and found that Shuri had already programed his scan into the system. Well, the girl could get her shit done, there was no doubt about that. He entered the lab, after gaining access, and found Shuri, very much awake, with her hair bundled up in a messy knot on top of her head and her hands still working across the keys of that massive computer. "Good morning, Captain Rogers." She said without even looking behind her.

"Princess, did you even sleep?"

"I tried." She turned to face him with a smirk on her impish, but lovely face. "Your friend keeps me awake at night, I tend to worry about him." She gestured to the sleeping body of Bucky, across the room from them. "He'll be fine, he's still very weak, but he'll be fine." She remarked as she watched Steve go to Bucky, tracing his cheekbone with his thumb.

She went back to typing on the keys, the image of Peggy, Steve saw earlier, flashed back across the screen. Except, this time, Shuri must have edited it or cleaned it because it looked clearer, sharper—he could see her in full, pristine, and piercing beauty. She was Peggy, alright, but there was something dangerously different about her. Sure, it was a different wardrobe, a different hairstyle, but there was something else here…he couldn't tell what it was, and it drove him crazy. He wondered how far, after he went into the ice, this had been.

"What happened to him?" He asked her cautiously, not wanting to jump to any conclusions.

Shuri sighed and turned back to him, getting up from her chair, and walking over to Steve, who was standing next to Bucky. "A pain in my ass." She pulled out a holographic keyboard and typed a command in Wakandan, before a colossal wave of pictures and images exploded from the machine in holographic mastery.

"This is your friend's brain, and what you see here, these are his memories." Steve looked closer at the few that were nearest to him. They were a group of unclear, but identifiable brownish, translucent images of a scrawny, asthmatic little kid named Steve. "HYDRA, when they fried Sergeant Barnes' frontal and temporal lobes, did it with systemic planning. They wanted to wipe out your friend's functioning, his executive decision making, his recognition and cognization of the familiar." She paused and brought down a group of sharp and clear memories. They were from earlier, Steve's face startling close to the frame as he laughed at something Bucky must have said.

"These memories—the short-term ones that Bucky is making now—he wouldn't have been able to make under HYDRA's system. They utilized a complex technique of hidden trigger words—words that, from nowhere—are scattered throughout Sergeant Barnes' consciousness and can, at anytime, cause him to go crazy psycho killer, right? I went in and disentangled HYDRA's code and branched it with my own, allowing the 100-year-old broken neuro-tissue to _finally_ function, on its own." She sent the memories she had been holding in her palm back up to their original space, before she brought forth the image of Peggy.

"The only thing about that is, if Bucky did—for whatever reason—still have hidden memories, the ones that HYDRA didn't want him to have, they will be incredibly neurologically damaging. His brain, essentially, has a stroke due to the memory's 'foreignness' to his newly-formed grey matter. In other words, Captain, your friend, if we're not careful here, could be in some real danger."

Steve didn't know what half she said meant, but he knew what 'danger' meant and that was bad news. He sighed heavily and leaned down to Bucky to kiss his forehead, tucking a piece of hair behind his ear. "So, we're sitting ducks? We just wait until he has another attack like this?"

"It would seem, at the moment, Steve, that would be correct."

He sat down in the chair beside Bucky's bedside and took his friend's hand, bringing it to his lips and holding it there. He could smell the _old,_ warm scent of Bucky—the faintly spicy taint of his aftershave. "Just answer me this, that memory—the one of the girl—is that an older one?"

"How old, Captain?"

"From the 1940s."

She frowned sharply at that, sensing something was amiss. "Captain, I'm afraid this memory was made in the last 8-10 years, _not_ from the 1940s."

* * *

Steve awoke to someone shaking his shoulder. He instantly snapped his eyes open, ignoring the crick in his neck from sleeping sideways in the chair beside Bucky's bedside. He didn't know why he was expecting an attack, but he supposed, what followed, was a sort of attack on all that he would ever know.

"What is it? What?" He demanded to the lab assistants who had awoken him.

"Captain…Sergeant Barnes… He's… He's awake." He realized with a shocking, choking revelation that Bucky was no longer in his bed.

"Where is he?" He snapped, his blue-green eyes going dangerously cold.

"He's this way." He followed after Shuri's assistants through the winding staircase of the lab, until they got to an outdoor garden where Shuri was talking in low-tones to Bucky. Steve feared for the worst—had he lost his friend again? Was he the Winter Soldier? But Shuri didn't seem scared, her face was a plethora of worry and concern. Bucky was facing the opposite direction, his back muscles tense and gripped in anticipation. Steve realized, as he got closer, Bucky was saying something, too.

"She's… I didn't remember, Shuri, but now… Now, I do." He said weakly, his voice seemed exhausted and worn out, just as he was.

"Hey, Shuri, anything I can do?" Steve called from behind them. It was an old war tactic: distract the target by throwing them off course as to 'who' the target was.

"Steve…" Relief flooded into her face. "I need—"

Bucky sharply turned to see Steve there and he pulled out of Shuri's grasp, his eyes were wild, and he was coming straight for him. He opened his arms, meaning to catch Bucky's strike, if he intended to strike him, but Bucky didn't do any of that. Instead, he grabbed hold of Steve's shirt and looked him dead in the eye. "Steve… I'm sorry…" Tears flooded his eyes. "I'm sorry… Margaret's…" His breath hitched in his throat. " _Peggy's_ alive."


	2. Captured

**JANUARY 17, 1946**

Peggy bust through the doors of the HYDRA fortress, ' _Unzerbrechlich.'_ The Howling Commandos, flanked behind her, spread out to hunt through the abandoned headquarters, for evidence of the Red Skulls' plans. Sure, he had wanted to destroy the world—but that was so _boring_ for a man as complex as Johann Schmidt. Peggy doubted a few missiles, an army, and a few blueprints could define a plan for world-domination. There had to be more. There _had_ to be more _._ He had to have died for _more. No_ , she froze, as she was looking through some old Nazi rubbish—she would not make this about _Steven_. And even as she thought that, she could feel a torrent of memories come and sack her in the gut. _Blue eyes. An echo of a booming laugh. The way he said her name…_ She sighed heavily and closed her eyes. _Count to five, Peggy_.

One _: 'Name's Steve Rogers.' A scrawny little man with a heart much too big for him._

Two _: 'Then what_ are _you looking for?' 'The right partner.' The back of a taxicab. New York City._

Three _: 'You wanna dance?' Snow. Ash. London._

Four _: 'I love you, Peggy.' A whisper in her ear, before a plane driven into ice._

Five _: 'We'll have the band play something slow… I'll try not to—' Gone. In an instant, as if he had never been._

And those were the five seconds she allocated to Steve Rogers for the day. If she thought of him longer than that, she would lose herself within the monster of grief that damn boy had let loose the moment he died. And it wasn't that hard to escape the monster of grief, Peggy had found out, not when HYDRA strike agents made it easy to distract yourself with bashing their heads in with the side of an assault rifle.

Speaking of bashing heads in, she had a job to do. She blinked and looked up at the fortress surrounding her. At one time, it must have been a lovely cathedral as there were high ceilings, stained-glass windows depicting Jesus and the Saints performing miracles and acts of God and grace, but one could trust Schmidt to want something a bit more ostentatious than a Catholic Cathedral. He had wanted a bloody castle. The limestone had been cut into, forming layers that reached up to the tippity-top of the Cathedral, with a staircase leading further up into the roof.

Surrounding the outside of the Cathedral— _a pain in the bloody arse, it was_ —were five explosive, but volatile rings of mine fields, TNT, and C4. While the Commandos had stood around scratching their asses with their rifles, Peggy and Jacques Dernier—the Commandos' explosive expert—went to work disabling every bomb in their path. No one, not even HYDRA, had gotten through to the fortress since Schmidt had died nearly a month ago. It hadn't been possible, until now. Perhaps that's why they called it 'unbreakable'—the English equivalent to _unzerbrechlich._

"Hey, Agent Carter—" Dum Dum Dugan called to her from the top of the stairwell.

She raised her head to look up at him with a raise of her brow. "Dugan, we've been here for 5 minutes, don't you _dare_ tell me you've already found something."

"I think it's a bit more than _something_ , ma'am." He held up a small rectangular object, bound in leather, burnt at the edges, with the wax seal of HYDRA—the grimacing skull submerged beneath the tentacles of an octopus—stamped on the front. "It's about Cap."

* * *

"She found a book." Bucky started the long winding tale that would undo everything Steve had ever known about Peggy Carter.

"You want to specify a little, Buck?" He asked with a small smile, trying to ease his friend's spirits. Steve sat forward in his seat a little, adjusting Bucky's blanket around his shoulders so it wouldn't slip off. He knew he was being overprotective, but he knew he was pushing Bucky to do the impossible: remember the things that had never truly been his _._

Bucky didn't seem to care if Steve had smiled or deadpanned, he stared into the steaming cup of tea Shuri had given him, with a broken gaze. And just like that, the good-natured guy from yesterday was gone. Resurrections, Steve had become aware of, weren't always as joyful as the Good Book led us to believe.

"Schmidt." Bucky blinked as if the thought of it _hurt._ Steve didn't want him to tell him, he didn't want him to stretch his brain past the limits that Shuri had given him, but he knew—for Steve's sake, for _Peggy's_ sake—he would. "Schmidt had a book about you… Well, it was about him, but he figured… He figured that, if he had to guess, you two would pretty much be the same on all counts."

"On all counts of what?" Steve probed, perhaps a little bit too sharply.

"Everything, Steve. Jesus Christ…your muscle density, force, mass, cognization, heartrate—all that bullshit. For a lot of it, he had two scores: yours and his. He also had an entire chapter written out on cryogenics."

Cryogenics? _I think, until we know what's goin' on, Stevie, it's best if I… This is the best option for me. I gotta put her in the water… I slept for 70 years, sir, I'd prefer to stay awake, if you wouldn't mind._ He pulled himself out of his memories of the ice—cold, flat, and desolate. There was nothing besides the inky, nightmarish dreams that kept you from truly coming to full consciousness, but it was enough to make you understand, you weren't awake. In fact, you knew you probably wouldn't be for a very long time. He should have known Schmidt—the father of all nightmares—would have known a thing or two about cryo.

"He did experiments on himself…and he determined," Bucky swallowed and seemed to deliberately _fight_ against something within himself from saying more: "that with the right dosage of the serum, someone of _our_ caliber, could live through being frozen alive."

Cap heard Bucky's words, but little-by-little, he had been putting the story together, himself. Peggy was smart, she wouldn't have second-guessed herself with that big of a discovery. She would have told Howard, and Howard… If she had had any doubts, he would have reassured her entirely. "Peggy knew." Steve said softly. Jesus Christ. What did he lead her into?

"Of course she fucking knew." Bucky snapped, a violent wave of anger swept over his face as his eyes shot upwards, meeting Steve's. "She and Howard Stark were gonna take a plane up to Arctic Sea to find you—she had coordinates and everything."

 _No no no no no no._ Steve's mind was a caustic cascade of denial. He led her to this. He led her to this bullshit because he tried to be a hero, he _tried_ to do the right thing. "What happened?" His voice cracked over the 'happened' of his speech.

Bucky laughed and shook his head as, for the second time that day, fresh, hot, and angry tears came to his eyes. When he finished laughing, there was a look on his face that Steve had never seen before. In fact, he didn't even know what kind of emotion that was. It was a feeling that had seemed to crack Bucky open, revealing the _lump_ of a man who had lost everything. "They sent me."

* * *

 _It was my first combat mission as the Winter Soldier. And they sent you to kill Peggy Carter? Yeah, jokes on them._

 **MAY 1947 – France**

It had been almost two years since the end of the War, but yet, here they were in France—still negotiating another Peace Treaty. If any of them had wanted to ask Peggy, which they didn't, but still— _if_ they had wanted to ask her—she would have told them: Why not just put all your adorable little knobs back in your pants for the rest of eternity? There. No more wars. She thought as she watched the middle-aged white men beneath her talk and scream at each other like exhausted toddlers. _Perhaps we all just need a nap._ She thought as she sat down, swinging her legs through the openings of the balcony's railing and leaning her forehead against it.

But exhaustion meant nothing to the face of peace, as Peggy and the SSR, under her direction, had been asked to supervise the negotiations of the peace pact. Except, there was nothing to observe besides men acting like children in five different languages. So, there was no getting out of this. She had to be there. But did she have to be _here?_ She looked to the window behind her, where it seemed a narrow, iron staircase led up to the top of the building.

She swung her assault rifle around behind her back and pulled herself up, before she walked over to the window and pushed the French-framed glass gently open. _Well, that certainly looks sturdy_. Peggy sarcastically observed of the rickety staircase before her, however, it had survived a war… She knew of a super soldier, who hadn't fared as well as this staircase. On that note, she pulled down the stairs and made her way to roof.

Once she was at the top, she took in a breath of fresh air. All around her was the destruction of war. Far to the north of Paris, the Louvre's roof had caved, the Tuileries Gardens had burned to crispy ash—everything was a mess. And all these men could do, the ones beneath her feet, was fight over what color ink to sign their names on some document that they'd end up burning in 50 years. While poor, beautiful, and fiery France, the rebellious little sister of England, had taken all of Hitler's anger in not winning over that 'silver sceptre' of the sea. In fact, most of the Nazi troops had been taken from the French soil, scattered across Europe in cells to rot or hung in prisons or shot in the back of alleyways and some, and she was sure—more than they would have liked—decided it was best to end it themselves… After all, once America had come, the Nazis knew it was over.

How could they ever manage to put themselves back together, again? This city, this country, this world… How could they fill in the broken places? Fill in the gaps left by the holes of cannonballs or look at the places where everything had once been… How could it ever be done? How could they possibly find the strength to _start_ over? Tears formed her eyes as her hand reached down to the small, leather bound book that hadn't left her belt since the day she found it. _You could fix it all_. She thought with a gasp as tears escaped her eyes at the thought of being reunited with him. One more month and her and Howard and Steve would all be reunited.

And that's when she heard it—a footstep. She had had the creeping suspicion someone had been watching her for 15 minutes now, but she had ignored it, figuring it was one of the Commandos offering her their respects by staying silent. But the menacing step forwards, that wasn't a _Commando_. She wiped away the tears that were on her cheeks and sniffed, her face going expressionless as she stared out at Paris' skyline. "If you're going to kill me, darling, you might as well be a man and allow me to see your face. After all," she turned to see the figure cloaked in the darkness before her, "any man who's willing to put a bullet through the brain of a lady, is a man I'll let get _behind_ me." She smiled that victorious, fierce little grin as the darkness before her opened and a man stepped out of it.

Her smile peeled off of her face instantly. "Oh, my God… _James_?" She asked softly, her eyes filled with new and relieved tears at the sight of him.

Bucky froze when he saw her. This woman… She _knew_ him. She knew him in a way that was different than anyone else. He took a step back. This was dangerous. She knew him. The angry, harsh voices within himself were screaming for him to get out of there, but he couldn't pull himself away from those _eyes._

"Oh, my darling… What have _they_ done to you?" She was there, before him. Unafraid. Snap her neck. Throw her off the side of the building. He scanned her for the target. The book. He saw it on her belt. Her hand was reaching out for his face. Break her fingers. Rip her hand off. _Kill her._ The voices—like an inglorious, satanic choir were screaming in full and disastrous union to slaughter her. But then…as her fingers, _real_ and _soft_ on his face, collided with the voices. Something within himself, something _deep_ within himself seemed to move.

"Peg…" He whispered and a single, but weak image of this girl came to his mind. Her arm around his shoulder (was it his shoulder?) and her other slung around a blond man. She was looking at him, Bucky, as if he could have done anything. _The world doesn't understand beauty, Sergeant Barnes…but if they did, they wouldn't keep you two from each other._ Keep us from each other. Keep. From. Each. The words folded out in his mind like marks on a map like they were cities and countries that would lead to other places, as soon as he could pinpoint them on _this_ map.

Keep. _A smile—he had had the same smile since he was six years old._

From. _Thank you, Buck, but I can get by on my own…_

Each. _The thing is, you don't have to. I'm with you til' the end of the line, pal._

Something. Something was there. Something. _You ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?_

 _I thought you were taller._

 _Go on—get out of here! No, not_ _without_ _ **you.**_

A click sounded in his brain as he remembered the back outline of that scrawny little kid. He was running from him, laughing about something, before he had doubled over coughing for five minutes. He had needed to go to his Ma for the medicine… He couldn't stand up straight for the rest of the day. _I can do this all day._ His fists had been bleeding and broken, shaking and cut, but he would have done it for the rest of his life. e. Steven Grant Rogers. _STEVE_. "Steve." Bucky met her eyes with a horrible, gasping breath of realization.

Peggy took a sharp breath as she realized what he had remembered. She nodded and then she hugged him tightly against her. "Listen to me, James, I know you're not alone…and I'm willing to bet, your superiors weren't planning on you recognizing me. So, you're going to— _Ow_!" A little pin hung from her neck. Bucky recognized the sedative immediately, it was one of HYDRA's own chemical designs.

"What have you—" And then Peggy's eyes rolled up into her head and she nearly collapsed onto the ground, had Bucky not caught her. Her limp little body hung suspended in his arms. He pulled her up against his chest, watching her lovely face with a heartbreakingly confused expression on his face. _Run. Get out of here_. It was Steve's voice screaming in his head. _Buck, get the hell out of there._

Sergeant Barnes, a voice was speaking to him. Sergeant Barnes, you failed. And we've been asked to put you back under. He didn't hear their words—just a pestilent buzzing in his brain. _Buck, get Peggy and get the hell out of there._ He looked up sharply at the two HYDRA strike agents standing in front of him, and before they could act, his metal fingers twisted around the throat of the first one and strangled him in five seconds. The other began to load his gun, but Bucky grabbed the middle of his rifle and broke it in half.

Sergeant Barnes, as your commanding officer, I command you to—"He's not going to respond to that." A particularly soft voice scraped into Bucky's mind. This was the voice of someone who had created him. The voice came over to him—a soft, beautiful woman, Emi (she had called herself)—she gently took the body, the one he had forgotten he was holding, from him.

"Pretty girl. I can see why you and the Captain liked her so much." She slung the curly-haired woman over her shoulder.

Bucky had known that girl. He frowned at Emi. The memories were slipping from him. It was as if they were leaving him, going out through a door in the back of his mind. He wanted to tell them to stop. Stop. STOP. But they left anyway. The voice of the man he had known was gone. He had quieted down. Everything had quieted down. His face was wet—had he been crying?

"Come on, Sergeant Barnes." Emi was saying, "It's time we got you fixed up." Bucky followed after her, having forgotten everything.

* * *

Peggy awoke in a strange, square room. She sharply jerked her head downwards to her bound and tied hands. Bound and tied. _Mmm kinky._ She gingerly wiggled her fingers and felt three of them—the other seven seemed to be too stiff to respond, at the moment. Plus, to her distaste, there was no sign of anything else that could aid her in an escape. It was an actual, literal _nondescript_ room. Nondescript because there was nothing to describe about it, other than four gray walls, metal chains around her feet, a plain steel table, and a single rectangular shaped outline against the wall. She assumed on the other side, it was a door, but to her, it was simply the outline of something other than cinderblock walls. She was an idiot, she knew what kind of room this was: interrogation. This is where they would ask her what she knew, about what, when, where, and why… And if she passed, she may live, but she doubted that.

And then the true horrific moment dawned on her, she looked down to her belt. The book. It was gone. Well, she supposed she should have seen that bloody coming. She exhaled a shaky breath. Easy, Peggy, easy. Don't. Lose. It.

She looked up at the ceiling, and much to her chagrin, it was more of the same: plane white box tiling with a simple, yet blocky camera watching her. "Get on with it, love!" She called to the walls. "I'd much prefer you begin your 'diabolical debacle' monologue, now, rather than later." She sing-songed into the camera, but her eyes were tracing the walls for any other signs of an exit.

There was a firm bump against the door and it swung open to reveal a breathtakingly _ravishing,_ young woman—Emi, Peggy would later find out—with a somber expression on her face. She was joined by two other guards, both of which were bearing that same cold and lifeless expressions on both of their faces. "Good evening, Miss Carter." The woman began with a soft, buttery voice. It was soothing, sweet, and tasteful. Too sweet. Something wasn't right about her.

" _Agent_ Carter." Peggy said with a touch of a smile.

Emi didn't smile back. She adjusted her watch's strap, which besides appearing to be a nifty little thing, seemed to double as a highly technical gadget that seemed to tell her everything she could have ever wanted to know about anything. "Before we get started, Miss Carter, is there anything I can get you?" She finally raised her eyes to meet Peggy's. Like the rest of her, her irises were shockingly stunning. They were filled to the brim with color: bronze, silver, gold, purple, violet, a splattering of scarlet. She was mesmerizing, she realized—every part of her was meant to attract the eye and detract from everything else. This girl, a petite, lovely child who couldn't be over 18, seemed to suck all the colors—no, all the _air_ —from the room.

Peggy raised a sharp brow with a hint of that exuberant smile still glowing across her lips. _Could she get her anything?_ "Ah, yes, my lovely tormentor, do you have, by any chance, any idea what happened to the little leather book that I came round with?"

Emi didn't seem to acknowledge Peggy's smile, nor did she seem to understand her request. "Your personal effects have been collected, you can collect them when we're finished here."

"When I'm dead, that is?"

Emi didn't respond. A bland, limp smile coiled across her face. It didn't fit her features, Peggy noted. "Perhaps it depends on how you respond to my questions, Miss. Carter."

"Once again, it's _Agent_ Carter, darling, and why would I answer anything you have to ask?"

Emi turned to the man on her left and spoke fluently in German. She must have been German, then. But Emi was good, if that was the case, because her accent—whatever it was…was strange. It almost seemed like the girl _didn't_ have an accent, like she didn't come from somewhere.

The man left the room, only to return with Bucky. Now that they were under real lighting and not the ashy light of the moon, Peggy could _finally_ see him. She tried not to react, but it was obvious, Bucky wasn't Bucky. For one, he had a metal arm with an aggressively silvery, glittery hue. And that was just the start, his hair hadn't been cut, his cheeks had thinned out, and for as huge as he seemed underneath all that muscle, he looked _sick_. He looked like his backbone, his vital and vibrant energy—the landmark traits of James—were ripped out of him. None of this compared, however, to his eyes.

Have you ever looked into the eyes of a creature with an unmoving eye? A beast that could have had an insect land there, on top of the silky liquid cornea, and _not have cared_. These were the frozen, unmoving, and corpse-like eyes James Barnes acknowledged her with. Inhuman. Unmade. Soulless.

"What have you done to him?" She snapped at Emi, while her eyes still savagely clung to Bucky's.

Emi was silent and looking as if she didn't feel the need to explain herself. And, as it turned out, she didn't because when she looked up at Bucky again, he was holding a silver pistol—one that matched his metallic arm—to her forehead.

"Ah, you're going to have my dear friend kill me." She burst out laughing. "You couldn't even have picked an original interrogation tactic?" She was still chuckling when one of the HYDRA agents behind Emi brought a gun to the back of Bucky's head.

Peggy stopped laughing as it died on her tongue. She didn't have a choice, now. Bucky's life wasn't an option, it was _never_ an option. "Well, now that you've gotten my attention..." She looked up from Bucky's gaze to see Emi staring with a cold, hard, and bland expression on her face. She had done this before, Peggy realized—this was nothing new to her. This scenario. This tactic. This strategy. That's all their lives were to her: a strategy for shaking out the information she wanted. "What is it you want?"

"You have something that I want, Miss. Carter." Emi said softly, her eyes were deliberately downcast. She didn't have the bloody audacity to meet her eyes?

"I'm sure I do, love, everyone seems to want something from me now a days." Peggy fixed the girl with a "I know more than you" smirk. She could answer their questions, but that didn't mean she'd tell them the truth.

"In January of last year, can you confirm you came across evidence to imply that Captain Steve Rogers is alive?" Emi was looking down at the table still, her eyes frozen on the plain white surface as if the nondescript tabletop was more interesting than whatever Peggy had to say.

The hair on the back of Peggy's neck stood up at the mere mention of Steve. She could feel a powerful wave of protectiveness settle over her. If her body had been made of cities, countries, nations, worlds…they would have been wiped out at the sheer power that coursed through her veins, simply at the idea of any kind of threat to Captain Rogers. "Well, I broke into HYDRA's, apparently, most 'formidable' fortress and found Schmidt's sappy little diary, if that's what you're inquiring." The words flew off of her tongue in a fluent movement somewhere between sass and rage.

"What did you do with the book, Miss. Carter?" Emi asked a little louder, but her eyes still remained fixed on the table.

"My dear, I'm so sorry… You mean, you don't have it?" Peggy smirked smartly, raising a cocky brow.

Emi's eyes were suddenly staring right into the back of Peggy's sockets, drilling holes into her eyes with a fiery combination of red, orange, and yellow all spinning madly in epileptic, spasmodic movement. It was suddenly very hard to breathe. "You had a decoy attached to your belt, where's the original?"

Peggy could _not_ breathe, Emi had done something or given her something, when she wasn't looking. She could feel darkness licking at the sides of her vision from a lack of oxygen. "It…was…mine…my journal…" She gasped out, but barely. "Burnt...yours…"

And then, as if the air was given back to her, she could feel the room's oxygen normalize and Emi's eyes were normal once more. "You burnt the book?" She didn't seem that upset. In fact, she seemed to believe her.

"I memorized everything that I needed to know, but everything else was fire feed." She coughed as the words that slipped out of her tongue seemed to take more air than she had intended them to. "I didn't want to take the risk of his _life_ ever falling into the wrong hands. Turns out, as always, those grubby, dirty little monstrous hands were closer than I thought." Peggy remarked with a disdainful look on her face.

It was true, what Peggy said. The book she had kept with her from day-in-and-day-out, tucked away within her belt, was her diary. Perhaps she was overly sentimental for keeping one, but in ten years, down the line—if she lived that long—to look back at her wild adventures… That was appealing to her, to be able to hold onto the life that Steve and Bucky had both given their lives for her to live out. Now, that was something extraordinary. But Schmidt's book had _not_ been the one she toted around, the minute she found it, she wanted to throw it into the flames of Unbreakable's forge… But she knew, for Steve, she had to, at least, know the details of what was at stake.

However, the other girl seemed to find what she said to be only mildly interesting. She sighed heavily and leaned across the table, meeting Peggy's eyes. "We know where Steve Rogers, Miss. Carter, in fact, we've always known. You see," she folded her hands and got closer to Peggy so that she could spot every beautiful line and crease of her face up close, "when Schmidt built any aircraft, he created a homing signal—in case, like this one, it ever went down—that we would be able to find him. Luckily, he activated the signal shortly before he died. So, I'll make this very simple for you: we want Captain Rogers to stay in the ice. It's good for HYDRA, makes it less messy to cover up his murder… That is, if he ever decided to return." She said it so matter-of-factly that she could have been stating that tea was hot or that shit stunk, but to Peggy, she made all the action around them stop. In fact, after she brought up Steve—Emi seemed to know, this was only about her and Peggy now.

Peggy, taking advantage of the other girl's closeness, leaned over so her lips touched Emi's heart-shaped ear. "Get his name out of your reptilian mouth, love, or I swear to all that is holy on heaven, earth, and Lucifer's bloody shite pile, that it will be the last thing you do." Peggy said ever-so-softly. She almost matched Emi's voice in buttery softness, except, where there was no sharpness to Emi's words, Peggy's wielded knives, swords, and lances. "Do you understand?"

"Like I said, it's up to you… But you're as well-aware as me, Miss. Carter, in knowing that a single bullet through the brain, can cause some damage, can't it?" Emi's expression hadn't moved, nothing on her face had changed. Except for her eyes, they were boring into Peggy's again. They were so _stunning…_ Visually…stunning… Perhaps she should look closer—would she let her? She felt some kind of stiff sleepiness settle over her mind. Well, that did make sense, she hadn't slept in so long… A real, natural sleep. Her eyelids were drooping, her white-knuckled grip on the edge of the table loosened, and she could feel her head dropping lower into her chest. The world was growing dim, seductively and deliciously dark as she slipped under the covers.

 _I love you, Peggy… A broken staticky sound filled the control room. Tears slipped down her face. She had lost him… Lost…_ Him. _Steve, darling, I'm so sorry…_ _It's okay, Peg, you did the best you could…_

 _No_. That's the thing, my love, I didn't.

Her eyes snapped open and the air around them was buzzing with a dangerous, kinetic energy. She met Emi's dangerously powerful eyes. She was enhanced with some kind of hypnotic, manipulative energy whatever it was. But none of them— _none of them,_ knew what was coming. "Don't say," she slowly rose from her seat—the chains on her feet suddenly gone and the bindings on her wrists dissolving into the air, "I didn't," her arms were rising with a threatening and terribly dark expression coming to her face, _"WARN YOU!"_ Peggy screamed into the air as the bricks within the room violent ripped themselves from the walls, the ground beneath her quaked and broke open to reveal the pipe system of the building, water spewed from the ceiling as a drain pipe broke open, and the two agents that had accompanied Emi were stabbed through the chest with two large wooden legs from the chair. While Bucky was flung back into the wall, protectively sheathed by two iron poles that bent forwards to hide him from the flying cinder blocks

Simply, as soon as it started, it stopped. Peggy's nose was bleeding, her hair was wildly shifted around her shoulders, and her brown eyes were black with cold, depthless fury. She hated these people—these people who had dared to think, for a split second, that Peggy Carter wouldn't keep her promise.

She walked over to Emi, the girl stood in the center of the room, perfectly intact, besides the carnage around her. "As I told you, I will do everything within my power—" she gestured to the debris of the room around them, "to protect that man— _do you understand?_ " She screamed violently into the other girl's face, but Emi simply blinked, seemingly unimpressed.

"Telekinetic." Emi observed of the young and powerful woman standing in front of her. "They told me to kill you when we were finished, but now, they'll have a use for you. Now, they'll never let you leave…not even, by way of ashes."

And then, there was simply _nothing_.

* * *

"She was _enhanced?_ " Steve asked when Bucky finished speaking, for a moment. It was all he could do, all he could say. "She-She never told me…"

"She didn't tell anybody." Bucky said softly, his eyes didn't meet Steve's. They _couldn't_ meet Steve's. If he looked into those eyes—the eyes that were just as confused, lost, and scared as he was, he probably would have lost it. If Steve Rogers, the man he had chosen to try and _fix_ himself for, couldn't be stable now, then _he_ had to be… And he couldn't, not with this, not when he thought about Peggy.

"Why not?" _Why didn't she tell me?_ Steve felt a wave of guilt wash over him. Seventy-odd years ago, he had made a decision to sacrifice everything for the world. He dove a plane into the ice and was frozen there…like some kind of primordial relic of a lost age. Except, he had done it with the knowledge that: (1), Bucky was dead—therefore, there was no home to go back to… and (2), Peggy… That vivacious, iconic woman… Well, he knew she would be just fine without him. Had he known, what he knew now… Maybe, he would have tried to find a way off of that plane.

Bucky, meanwhile, had been plucking his brain for the words to answer Steve's question: "For the same reason HYDRA suddenly wanted her, Steve—she was powerful and now… Now, she had a purpose for them."

* * *

Peggy woke up, again—this time, in a narrow and dark cell—feeling wretched. She keeled over onto her hands and knees and vomited. There was a salty, chemical scent to it—cyanide. _Poison._ She weakly laughed and dragged herself up against the wall. She had a few minutes to figure out when they had given it to her and perhaps only a few more, after that, until it reached her heart.

She had to get it out—she had to make it back to Bucky, she had to get Steve out of the ice. She slunk her fingers down her throat and forced herself to wretch once more, feeling the last of the energy leave her body as her chest convulsively shook to rid itself of its contents. She sunk to the dirty stone floor, weak and cold and exhausted. A pair of combat boots entered her vision as she directed her gaze up to the impeccable and soft beauty of Emi Jones. She was gazing down at her, neither with contempt or pity.

"Just couldn't stay away, could you, love?" Peggy's chapped lips slyly slid into a smug little grin.

Emi sank down into a squat, going up on her toes with a terrible balance. "Your powers won't work here."

"Well, I figured as much… This _is_ the part where you break me."

Emi sighed heavily. "You have a choice here, Carter," the use of her last name was the most genuine, Peggy had heard her sound: "either willingly comply with HYDRA's demands or they'll make you." She cocked her head and looked at Peggy with no sympathy, but with sheer and utter and irrevocable enervation. She had seen it happen before—this woman, she had seen it time and time again. She had stood on the cusp of someone's will, holding it in their hands, and then, knowing she did, broke it in half. She had broken Bucky, Peggy assumed. Her sweet Sergeant Barnes who would save her his 'once-a'week' chocolates and make her laugh so hard, she could cry. She could cry now.

But she wouldn't, not with this young and terrible woman standing before her. "You don't take any pride in this."

"Of course not, but that's the thing, Agent Carter, I don't get to decide if I do or _don't._ HYDRA took that choice away and now, choice means nothing to me, not anymore."

"You could destroy them." Peggy said softly, as she thought of Emi's powerful manipulative powers of their reality. She had made her think she was suffocating— _with the mere thought of it._

Emi's eyes that, at once, could be filled with so many colors were suddenly split apart and were left with only one color: black. "I tried to, but like you, I was emotionally vulnerable. I loved someone, and as soon as HYDRA knew that, they held a gun up to her face for the rest of her life and one day… Well, to say in the least, she didn't have a face anymore." An image of the HYDRA agent holding a gun to Bucky's head, made her feel sick to her stomach once more, even though there was nothing left for her to purge.

Emi's eyes hadn't changed, even with the story of the girl she must have loved. "They don't play games, Carter, and they don't care who you love. They don't _care_ period—they will turn everything you love to ash without even flinching. And while your entire life is burning, they'll wait until all the blood drains from your body, before they do it, _all_ _over again._ "


	3. The Broken and the Damned

"What about the SSR?" Steve asked, when Bucky had finished speaking for a moment. The two men had moved outside to the Royal Gardens, taking in the beauty of the morning light over Wakanda. They sat with their hands gently interwoven, Steve's eyes were latched to the side of Bucky's profile, and Bucky's rooted to some far-off point in the past.

"What about it?" Bucky blinked and seemed to reluctantly pull himself back into his body.

"I mean, they must have realized Peggy had been missing… Why didn't they send out a search party? Something— _anything_?"

Bucky nodded—Steve made a good point. But then again, how soon Steve forgot this wasn't the Avengers in 2017, this was HYDRA in the 1940s. "Peggy was, supposedly, still making contact until December of 1947—"

"—but how could they believe based on—"

"It was the start of the Cold War, Steve—remember your US history?" Bucky's smile ghosted his lips as he hesitantly reached out to touch Cap's cheek, turning his face so their eyes would have the opportunity to meet. "The Soviets were coming either to turn everyone Communist or blow everything to hell—America needed help from the worst of the worst if they were going to make it out alive." He paused and dropped his hand from Steve's cheek, but not looking away from his gaze. "And it turns out, the SSR had just the kind of people America was looking for."

"'Paperclip.'" Steve remarked with a solemn realization, a frown surfaced to his face as he remembered Dr. Arnim Zola. The rat-faced, pre-pubescent, little man who lived on in Steve's memory as a _virus_. The Swiss doctor, who as Natasha had told him a few years ago, had headed the early SHIELD initiative known as Paperclip. The same doctor who had cut and skinned and canned his best friend's brain into a neat and organized system—all filed away nicely for each leader of HYDRA to read over and memorize it, in order to use Bucky however they liked.

"Bingo." Bucky noted with a matter-of-fact kind of way. "35 ex-Nazi scientists could either join the SSR and live, or rot in prison until they were hung, electrocuted, or done away with for good. The logistics of it doesn't matter, but the long and short of it is, the SSR was too busy handling greasy scientists and Russian ballistic missiles to care about a lack of physical presence from Peggy Carter. In fact," he sighed heavily as if the next piece of information would once again, disrupt everything he had told thus far: "her last known action ever recorded in the SSR's files, was the directive to initiate Paperclip."

Steve's heart fell. _Paperclip was where this all started, Rogers—that's where HYDRA got in. The very foundation of everything SHIELD originally stood for, and HYDRA got there first._ Natasha's words echoed in his ears from the HYDRA-SHIELD fiasco several years ago.

 _No…Peggy, tell me it's not true…_ Steve looked away from Bucky and, like an old black-and-white movie, he imagined Bucky's story coming to life. She had been cornered like a starving and frightened creature, isolated from all that she had ever known, and poured into the mold they fit for her. No, his Peggy hadn't done this—it had been whatever bullshit they had fed into her.

"But it wasn't really her." Steve said to Bucky—it wasn't a question, it wasn't a statement, it was a doctrine, to Steve Rogers. Peggy Carter—one of the best people he had ever known—would never lay the groundwork for the destruction of everything she had _worked_ for. She would have rather died, than jeopardize the legitimacy of the SSR.

Bucky sighed as his blue eyes locked onto Steve's with a hard-lipped expression. Once again, Steve didn't get it. An 'unmaking,' doesn't separate you from yourself. There aren't two Bucky Barnes', just as there weren't two simultaneous and instantaneously existing Peggy Carters. There's only ever _you._ Except, once HYDRA had their way with you, once they _destroyed_ you—then you start to _grow_. Suddenly, it's not just your own thoughts in your head, but ten thousand voices (all of them your own) that scream at you to massacre, burn, and pillage. You don't know which piece of yourself goes where and how it could all possibly fit. It's gnarled, it's grizzly, and Steve Rogers knew nothing about it. "It _was_ , Steve—Peggy built HYDRA right onto SHIELD's foundation, and she didn't hesitate."

"But that means…" Steve looked as if he couldn't process Peggy's betrayal of something so intimate within her life.

"She wasn't who you thought she was." _Or who you wanted her to be_. Bucky finished his thought but would never dare to say it out loud. Steve would never believe him, he would never believe what Peggy became within those dark and unholy walls.

* * *

"I did what you wanted!" Peggy cried as she coughed water out of her sputtering lungs. "I did what you—" And then more water was shoved down into her throat, deep into her esophagus as her entire body began to shake with tremors. There was water _everywhere_ and filling up every orifice of her entire body. She was strapped to a hard board, blindfolded, and drowning on dirty, salty water.

"What more do you want _?!_ " She screamed shakily into the air, as she choked on the last gulps of the salt water. It burned her tongue as the salt flamed through her nasal cavity. She tried to move, she tried to summon what little energy she had left to throw herself off of this board, but she knew it was no use. If Emi was anywhere near her—which she was sure she was—she would make sure she could never escape.

There was a silence—an eerily, disturbing silence as that of a shark lurking within the depths of the ocean. "No…" Peggy pleaded. She knew this part all too well. "No, please… I gave them the command…" The board began to tip back with her still fastened to it. " _NOOOOOOO_ —" Water. Water was everywhere, drenching everything within her, before the ungodly fury of voices became heard all at once: HOW LONG HAVE YOU HAVE YOUR ABILITY? WHERE IS YOUR ALLEGIANCE LIE? DO YOU COMPLY? HEIL HYDRA. WHERE IS CAPTAIN ROGERS? HOW LONG HAVE YOU HAD YOUR ABILITY? YOU WILL LIVE UNDER ONE NAME AND THAT IS—HYDRA. WHAT IS YOUR NAME? HEIL HYDRA. YOU ARE NOTHING. NOTHING AT ALL.

When it stopped, Peggy began to wretch black water from her lungs. The water tasted not simply as salt, but filth. They were drowning her with rotten things of the Underworld, how apt. She spat the last of the filthy water out of her mouth and moved her head to look head on at her torturers. Despite not being able to see them, she could still put them at unease with being scarily accurate in her direction. "Screaming at a lady will you get nowhere." She gasped out weakly. Her voice sounded foreign to her ears, unknown in this unknown world where she had found herself. "So, I suggest you try something else, love, and leave—"

Water. Water was everywhere…and she was WHERE IS CAPTAIN ROGERS?! _PEGGY…. PEGGY, I'M SORRY I GOTTA PUT HER IN THE WATER…_ She was ANSWER THE DAMN QUESTION. There was a stinging sensation on the side of her cheek. She was trying to think of something… HEIL HYDRA. Heil HYDRA. NO. YES. NO. DO YOU COMPLY? _Peg, listen to me, you gotta listen, okay? They're going to take you from me… PLEASE, PEGGY, LISTEN DAMMIT. Steve, my darling? Where are you…? I can't… You have to stay awake._ There was so much water… She was WHY THE HELL WON'T YOU JUST FUCKING DIE? SCREAMING FOR YOUR LIFE DOESN'T MAKE A FUCKING DIFFERENCE TO ME.

She was too _weak…_

 _Peggy, if I'm meant for greater things than this…_

ANSWER. THE. FUCKING a painful collision on her head QUESTION. _Steven, where are the stars? I just want to see the stars…_ HEIL HYDRA. Heil HYDRA. NOYESNOYESNOYESNOYESNOYES.

 _Then you were meant to SAVE THE UNIVERSE._

Her eyes snapped open beneath the filthy water, her throat was burning, her vision was going blurry. She was _dying_. She had to get out of here. _Peggy, if I'm meant for greater things than this, then you were meant to save the universe…_ Just. Like. How. You. Saved. Me. She heard his words, his voice speak into her minds. She _felt_ the words and all their power coursing through her—the sheer energy and gravitas of those six words echoing through the confines of her mind. She grabbed onto it with everything inside of her and refused to let go.

"DO YOU HEAR THE WORDS THAT I'M—" And then the man was choking as the blindfold around Peggy's eyes sagged and she ripped her hand from the restraints, ripping it off of her eyes. The room around her flew into chaos; the board flipped over, the water they had been pouring over her in gallons and buckets, flew out of its containers and began to choke her torturers. Peggy's fingers were streaming the energy of the universe into the room, causing everything to go backwards, forwards, and to the side. She felt her nails rip from her fingertips as the power she wielded began to dissolve her very skin. The pretty skin on the tip of her nose began to peel as slips of flesh floated through the air like feathers from a downy pillow.

It was destroying her, all in the name of her love for one man, and she didn't care. Because if you weren't willing to destroy everything for the sake of _one person,_ then what was the point of even living?

 _Just like you saved me. Just like you saved me. Just like you saved me. Just. Like. You. Saved. Me._ A mantra, a holy prayer to be uttered before God and Jesus and the Saints.

She was about to break down the wall, find Bucky, and get the hell out of there. There was an opening—an escape. Then there was a _crack_ , and suddenly, she was falling, falling to the busted ground where filthy water seeped around the side of her face. Blood was soaking the water around her as she looked up to see the bullet wound through her abdomen and the man holding the pistol with a truly shaken expression on his face.

Bucky.

He had tears in his _eyes_.

"Jesus Christ— _let him go_!" Peggy screamed at Emi who was coldly, and as always, despondent to everything around her.

"Sergeant Barnes, turn the gun on yourself, please." Emi stated flatly, watching Peggy with absolutely _nothing_ in her eyes. And to her horror, James—with absolutely no complaint—tilted the pistol to his chin. He tucked it neatly underneath his jaw bones, and when he swallowed, it made the gun pulse in a horrific, grotesque way. This was the stuff of hell.

" _NOOOO_ , _BUCKY, NO! DON'T YOU DARE, YOU BLOODY SON OF A BITCH, PUT THE GUN DOWN!"_ Peggy was screaming as Emi nodded at Bucky to click the safety off.

Bucky met Peggy's eyes, and the terror that resided there seemed to equate to that of the Marianas Trench. It burned to look into his eyes. That terror could have reigned over all the terrors in the world. It wasn't that he was afraid to die—his hands were steady and his shoulders were set. No, this man was afraid of losing the one person who seemed to _know_ him. He would forget her, he knew, he would forget everything he had ever _truly_ known, the moment Peggy was gone. _Just like you saved_ me… He knew she was a savior of some kind or another. Tears filled her eyes. "Let him go, Emi, please…" She begged as water from the broken pipes spewed around them, as her blood poured like wine into the dirty water.

"You agree to join HYDRA?"

Peggy looked at Bucky. Bucky looked at Peggy. She closed her eyes to stop seeing them. There wasn't a choice here. Just as Emi had said: they don't give you the option to choose, and you let them take it right out of your hands— _willingly_. "Let him live, and you'll have me—" She opened her eyes to meet Emi's sadly, with all the utter heartbreak in the world resting there, but Peggy Carter, exalted and true until the very end, offered a bright and wondrously cracked smile—"for all of eternity. Just. Let. Him. Live. _Please._ " Her voice cracked, shattered in half by the idea of Bucky's blood running down the walls, his brains sliding through the murky water—everything that she loved about him, mummifying in a corpse—a corpse who never got the chance to live after the War.

"Sergeant Barnes," Emi called to Bucky.

 _Call him off._ Peggy thought in her mind, her eyes racing between Bucky and Emi.

Bucky stiffened at the mention of his name, he knew what was coming and fearfully locked his eyes on Peggy. _Just like you saved me._

" _CALL HIM OFF, DAMMIT."_ Peggy screamed. Her eyes—wide and rolling with terror—were watching Emi, who was still looking at Bucky with an expressionless, unphased expression.

"Sergeant Barnes,"

 _Five._

 _Four._

 _Three._

 _Two._

 _One._

"Put down the gun." The dark pistol dropped into the water and Peggy sank against the wall, with an anxious sigh escaping her lips.

James would live to see another day. Peggy would die for that day to come.

* * *

Steve's face was full of emotions. All of them terrible, all of them heartbreaking, and all of them guilt-ridden.

"I did this." He whispered.

"Shut up, Steve." Bucky snapped. "I was her endgame, every _fucking_ time." And at that—Bucky looked crushed beyond repair. "You see because she did what they wanted, but not how they wanted it done. And they couldn't—" Bucky stopped talking and his eyes froze in a scarily familiar way that Steve knew all too well. _He's, essentially, having a stroke…_

"Bucky." Steve was there in a second, grabbing his shoulders and giving him a squeeze. Bucky blinked and looked back down at Steve with an exhausted look on his face. He was fine. He was okay.

"They couldn't fry her brain into mush like they did with me…with the rest of the soldiers…" He frowned and pushed his face into his hands. "Her powers…" He had a headache, Steve could tell. When he was a kid, he used to get em' all the time. 'Head hurts,' his Ma had called em'. If only Sue Barnes could see him now. It was dangerous to push him past this, Steve should have stopped him.

"Buck…" He gently touched the back of Bucky's head, feeling the warm and alive flesh beneath his fingertips as he massaged the back of his neck with the tips of his fingers. "Take a break."

"No, _no."_ His eyes turned stormy, _dark_ as they turned up to look at Steve. "I owe her this much. I _owe_ her a few fucking brain freezes for all the shit she did for me. I _owe her everything…_ " He looked on the verge of cracking open, but he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Steve reluctantly nodded. He didn't want him to do this, but it was Peggy they were talking about—both of them would have killed for the girl. He gestured to the previous part of his story. "Her powers protected her… But why was there such a need to "break her," if she was already loyal to HYDRA?"

Bucky smiled in a sad and terrible way. "Ah, Steve…" He met Steve's eyes directly, then, not unafraid to say this much: "Loyalty is the only thing you have, when you're entirely shattered."

 _While the rest of the Agency wasn't concerned about Peg, they did send one agent to find her. She was real special to Peggy, I remember that much about her…_

Colleen Andros was top of her class at the Academy, she was top of everything, really: top of the line, top of her grades, and top trainee in combat missions. And now, next to Peggy, she was the first woman to ever be part of the SSR. She looked to Peggy like she was some kind of goddess, after all, she had been sent to Germany when hardly any of the other SSR agents had been. That meant she was special, that meant she was _invaluable_.

She had even started a new operative—"Paperclip," they were calling it—for the ex-scientists of WWII, which Andros thought was honorable and hysterically ironic. Let the people who tried to destroy the world, spend the rest of their lives, building something to make it better. It serves them right. But that had been done without Peggy actually _being_ here. She sent a note in the postage, which gave pardon to said-scientists, with Dr. Arnim Zola in charge. Arnim Zola was particularly strange, too—hadn't he been the Red Skull's righthand man?

But Andros was too fresh to say anything, so she didn't. In fact, as her first official task at the Agency, she had been assigned to Peggy. The only problem was, Peggy hadn't made an appearance, an actual physical appearance in over six months. It's hard to be assigned to someone who's never around. But the strange thing was, no one seemed to be entirely worried: 'she's been making contact,' 'she's up in the North Pole on a top secret expedition,' 'she's acting as a double agent for the Soviets.' In other words, no one had any real clue where Peggy had gone off to, and Andros was determined to make contact with her superior.

She missed her, despite the strict rule of: "don't get too close to anyone because anyone of your friends could DIE"—but why live like that? That was just a miserable fucking existence. So, she tracked down Peggy, with the help of Stark's devices, to an old building in Sokovia. What was Peggy Carter doing in Western Europe? Better yet, why was she in an old pre-War building in a small Communist nation?

Upon arrival, she was, of course, captured and taken by HYDRA's forces. None of which Andros expected, and she certainly didn't expect to wind up staring face-to-face with Peggy a few hours later. They shoved her into that tiny room with a bedraggled Carter sitting on a bed, looking like all the world, anxious, beaten-down, and crushed. But when she saw Andros, her darling protégé, she gasped in visible delight.

"Oh, my _darling_." She leapt up and hugged Andros tightly to her. "Are you alright?" She asked her as she pulled away sharply, fussing over the minor scrapes and bruises they had left on Andros' face when they took her in. Andros thought, for a moment, she saw tears in the older agent's eyes. "I will get you out of here, I _promise_." She said heavily, meaning every word of the sentence.

Colleen looked at Peggy with a smirk. "Agent Carter, I'm fine—really. Are _you_ okay? I had no idea—"

Peggy placed a hand over her mouth and shoved the girl behind her as a masked HYDRA strike agent came into the room, with a single gun in his hand. "I was told to give this to you." He remarked simply as he handed the pistol to Peggy.

"What is this? Why are you gentleman always handing me _guns_?" She asked with a sharp little raise of her brow. "I'm sure there are far better weapons than something as phallic as a pistol."

The agent gestured to Andros. "Shoot her." He said it simply as if he had been requesting a meal from a diner.

Peggy frowned instantly, backing Colleen tightly against the wall, before she turned the gun on the guard. "Mmm… I don't like that option. How about I make another option—my own one? Option B: I shoot you, instead."

And then, that's the moment when everything changed. The guard pulled the mask from his features and it was none other than _Bucky_. She was pointing the gun directly at him, his eyes blank and lifelessly blue were staring right through her. They had just wiped him. The more she was around him, the more he needed to be fried. _So_ , she thought, _this is how you'll do it._ She broke into tears. This was a black-and-white move HYDRA had decided to pull, and they _knew_ it.

"There's not a choice here— _you know that_!" She screamed into the tinted glass in front of her, where she was sure all of HYDRA's analysts were watching the scene with interest. The weight of Andros behind her felt ten times heavier as she turned slowly to look at the girl. "Don't make me do this, please." She begged as heavy, runny, and snotty tears accumulated on her face.

She sunk to her knees and looked up at Colleen—the poor girl was still clueless. How was she supposed to know who Bucky was? How was she supposed to know that that boy was the only person Peggy had left, that that boy meant everything to her? How was she possibly supposed to know that? She didn't, and that's why this was so upsetting.

"PLEASE, DON'T MAKE ME DO THIS." She screamed like some injured animal. Bucky came over and sharply yanked her face up to meet his shockingly blue eyes.

"Kill her and we won't have to."

Colleen sharply kneed Bucky in the chest, a crack ensued, as muscle and broke through, but it didn't come Bucky. Peggy turned—Bucky didn't, his eyes had barely registered Andros had tried to take him down—and saw the poor girl holding her leg at an awkward angle, blood pouring down the side of her leg. _Poor child._ Bucky was made of steel, ice, and soviet-made flesh… Trying to injure him was like trying to move a train car with one finger."Andros, stay down." Peggy whispered through thick tears.

Peggy sobbed softly as she turned to look at Andros, the girl was hunched over in pain, holding her injured leg with a desperation. Peggy saw the terror was rising in her eyes. This sweet girl full of promise, full of light, and fire. She found Peggy's eyes watching hers and some kind of acceptance passed over her face. Colleen wasn't stupid. She had made a name for herself for being smart, for being beautifully dynamic… So, when she saw Peggy pull the gun from Bucky's face and make the move to tuck it under her arm, Andros put two-and-two together: she was going to die here, and there was nothing she could do. "I made a promise, love." _I will get you out of here…_ "And I have to keep it, at all costs." _On all that is holy in heaven, earth, and Satan's shite pile…I will do whatever it takes to protect that boy._ She leaned down and took Colleen's sweet face in the palm of her hand and kissed her forehead softly, before she took the gun and with the beat of a trained professional, shot Andros right through the heart. It killed her instantly.

The thump her body made as it hit the ground would haunt Peggy for the rest of her life. She fell to her knees, then, cradling her protégé's broken body in her arms. The tears came easily and the hysterics even easier. "I'm so sorry… I'm so _so_ sorry, my sweet girl…" She whispered as tears fell on the young woman's pretty porcelain skin.

 _And that's how they did it._ 10 teenagers in Moscow.

 _Systematically breaking her down with each kill._ 347 on an SS ship headed towards Mexico for training in the Army.

 _She became the best strike agent they had—they dubbed her 'M16.'_ 78 in Guatemala at a department store.

 _Why, because 16 was the most she ever killed?_

 _No, Steve—16 didn't even scrape the surface. She killed indescribable amounts of people. M16 was the name of the fucking gun brand she used._ 107,989, in total…for the _year_ 1958.

 _And the thing is,_ **she was bathed in blood—head-to-toe, caked in blood as if she had been baptized into some kind of masochistic cult** _I didn't think there was still a part of Peggy left after the first few years, but it wasn't until Vietnam…_ **she was screaming as her hands flew up to deflect the bullets they shot at her, they turned sharply in their aerial projection and through the necks of their snipers** _Summer, I think, of 1973 that she… Well, she lost it._

 _Lost what, Buck?_

There was a thatch roofed house in the middle of an abandoned village. Well, it _was abandoned_ , then. Peggy and Bucky—assigned partners, at the time—had killed just about everyone else. Of course, HYDRA demanded prisoners—and as they both knew, HYDRA got what they wanted. They had just collected the handful of scrawny Vietnamese teenagers who were to be the playthings of HYDRA scientists for the next few weeks, when Bucky spotted a thatch-roofed house up on a hill that she had missed.

He turned to Peggy. Her face was a mask of cold and brisk beauty—the same expression Emi had always worn on her face. But he knew, as well as Emi did, Peggy didn't fake hers—she was murderous and seemed to have a vengeance pent up against the whole world. Sometimes they would talk, sometimes they wouldn't, but she never said anything that made him think about anything. He only knew her and she only knew him. They knew, but never, ever _understood_ why. "What is it, Barnes?" She called to him, her English accent, with the lack of speech had begun to slip away as she adapted the formless and traceless accent of the other HYDRA agents. What was left was only a slightly more deflectioned speech.

He gestured with his rifle to the house atop the hill. Peggy cocked her head and frowned, utilizing her newly-instilled super-soldier hearing to listen to what was going on within the house. She must have heard something because shortly thereafter, she was gone, climbing the hill with a mad and furious pace. Bucky leaped over a stump to keep up with her, ignoring the sweat that was beading on his brow and rolling down his back. It must have been 103 degrees that day, with the sun beating down on them with a mad and murderous rage.

Peggy had busted down the door and stood in the doorway of the thatch house, her gun was poised directly at something right beyond Bucky's vision. He turned from her to the two small figures before them. Small, pale, blue-eyed children. They were crying and begging in German. Peggy's eyes locked onto the third figure in the room. Emi.

Emi—the reason they both had been dragged here to Vietnam, in the first place. "What the bloody fuck is _this_ , Emilie?" Peggy snapped, her gun still cocked at the children.

"German children." Emi acknowledged them with a cock of her head. "Actually, a rogue HYDRA agent's children." She arose from her seat at the table, walking over to the two of them, but only keeping her eyes on Peggy's. "He's been feeding secrets to the American government. So, before we kill him, we're going to massacre his family."

"They're children, Emilie." Peggy snapped. "We're not going to kill _children_."

"You will because it's the last test HYDRA has for you." Emi stated plainly, meeting her eyes with a dead, unsurprised gaze. Not even the death of children would scare Emi—not even the screaming cries of children would _break_ into her.

Peggy turned sharply back to the whimpering babies in the corner. The last test. No more 'proving herself' bullshit as she had been for the last thirty years. She raised the gun to the children, her eyes locking onto the baby blues of the older one. A little girl. A darling little girl with bright blue eyes. Blue eyes to melt your heart. _Just like you saved me._

Peggy nearly dropped the gun. Her fingers were quivering, her breath escaped from her lungs. Steven. She had nearly forgotten him. _A blonde little girl—pig-tail braids with a yellow little dress, and those colossal blue eyes, sacked her in the side of the face. "Mummy!" She cried to Peggy, with a gleeful little grin as her father—with those same sharp and rather large blue-green eyes—lifted her up with one arm and brought her to his chest._ The life she would never have. The life she didn't deserve, her gaze drifted to the children, and neither did they.

She turned back to Emi, pointing the rifle at her friend—if she could call her that, while Emi was the one who initially held a gun to her bloody face. "No, I won't kill children, Emilie."

There were two shots behind her.

She didn't turn to look, she didn't turn to see the desecration that had befallen the two little creatures behind her. She saw the blood seeping beneath her feet and she gagged. She was not squeamish of blood, there was a reason, she was the best strike agent HYDRA ever had, but this—this blood was the stuff of nightmares; sacrifices to pagan gods, baptisms to Satan. No, this was the stuff of genocides… And she had done this.

She moved her eyes to see Bucky Barnes—the gun in his hand, with a broken expression on his face. She shook her head in utter dismay, in utterinconsequential, irrevocable heartbreak. _What had they become?_ He had done it for her, she realized with a sharp and biting breath, _so she wouldn't have to_.

Emi, for once, looked mildly surprised. "Definitely not how I expected things to go." She pulled out a gun and shot Bucky through the leg. He let out a voiceless, yet numb cry of pain as he sunk to the floor. "Next time, you two do this shit again, it will be through his fucking head." Emi got up and walked out of the hut, her boots left a trail of bloody footprints in her wake.

Peggy dropped to her knees, feeling the whole world screaming at her. She felt the oppressive weight of the children's broken little bodies falling on top of an debt, she could never pay. She felt, for the first time in 20 years, tears streaming down her face. It would be the last time she would ever cry. Because there would be nothing as terrible to cry about, than the deaths of innocent, screaming children in the face of an unforgiving, merciless, ungodly force that was HYDRA.

She was part of it, now, and there was nothing she could do.

Bucky dragged himself over to her, holding his broken leg, but not daring to touch her. He watched the side of her face with a sad expression taking hold of his face. He saw something within her eyes, he didn't know what it was—a brightness, a hope, or some kind of vitality in the depthless blackness of her eyes, begin to bleed out in her tears. He could see her tears dancing in the fading light of the twilight as stars seemed to fall from her eyes. And the last of everything she had, splashed into the blood of the lambs beneath them.

Belief, he thought, was a terrible thing…because even when you thought it was gone, there was always some other part of yourself that could still believe, even when you have nothing. And now, as he looked to the caved and broken face of Peggy Carter, he knew—

 _It was the day she lost_ _everything_ , _Steve. She lost_ everything _._


	4. Promises

" _So, who's the girl?" Bucky slammed door closed on the back of the Jeep, leaning against the trunk, and choosing to eye Steve with a raise of his brow._

" _What do you mean 'who's the girl?' Agent Carter?" He tried to hide the blush that was creeping up the sides of his cheeks, while he buried his face in the cargo hold of the bunker and pretended to look for something. Whatever it was, it must have been_ more _important than whatever Bucky wanted to know._

" _Is that her name?" Bucky smirked with a wry, yet smug little grin on his face. "Agent?"_

" _It's Peggy, smartass." Steve rebuked him sharply. He knew he was as pink as a spring chicken. Plus, it didn't help the embarrassed ring in his voice was about as clear as day._

 _ **He stood on the glossy wooden floor in a darkened Neoclassical building, like those that lined the National Mall in D.C., with all the highbrow marble columns and high-reaching ceilings. It was empty and the windows, which were put in place around the perimeter of the upper wall, were black as night. And yet, he felt like he had been in this place before, this empty space and centerless room. He turned to see a wall of mirrors stared back at him. He frowned and walked over to them, reaching out to touch the glass and an infinite amount of Steves reached back to him.**_

" _Oooo profanity. Is she teachin' you that language? I might have to intervene."_

" _Please, don't." But it was too late, Steve was already starting to smile to himself, while he was simultaneously trying to hide his face from Bucky._

 _Bucky was grinning at Steve—a genuinely happy kind of smile. His blue eyes were alive, while the cut on his temple, from his HYDRA imprisonment days, was healing nicely. He tilted his head with that same amused little smile, which seemed deadest on never leaving his face. "If she's gonna be the dame in with the two of us, I gotta know who she is. She's gotta be somethin' special."_

 _ **He turned sharply to see a little girl standing there at the door. She had crazed and unbrushed honey-dew curls that framed her face, small and microscopic features that seemed too little to be pieces of a person, rather than that of a doll. She even was wearing a nightgown, like the one typical for children back in Steve's day. She cocked her head and was staring at him with this gaze that—for some incredibly, foreboding reason—was scarily familiar.**_

" _ **Hi," he said softly, a warm smile coming to his face as he fell into a squatting position to be on her level.**_

 _The super soldier sighed and pulled his head out of the cargo hold, obviously, the thing he was searching for had become evidently clear to Bucky that it didn't exist. "If I tell you somethin', you'll leave it alone?" He asked with a raise of his brow._

 _Bucky spit in his hand and held it out to Steve. "Just like old times, c'mon, Stevie." He gave him an expectant, suggestive look. Steve could only replicate the action and shake Bucky's hand with a small tug of his lips in what appeared to be a small hint of a smile._

" _She socked Gilmore Hodge so hard, she broke his jaw." He let that sink in for a moment, before Bucky broke into laughter—hard and heavy laughter._

" _Get out of the park, she did not."_

 _Steve shrugged in a teasingly, yet helpless matter and made a zipping motion across his lips. "You know what they say, Buck, 'loose lips sink ships.'" He winked at his boyfriend, before he turned on his heel to leave._

 _Except, as he made his way past Bucky, he found Peggy was standing there, behind him—arms crossed, and those hypercritical brows raised to full height. "Loose lips do, indeed, sink ships, Captain. And what were you 'not' sinking?"_

 _ **And when Steve looked down again, there was blood pouring from the middle of his abdomen. Ruby-red blood was gushing from between his strong chest muscles like water instantaneously made from a biblical stone. He fell to his knees, gasping and sputtering for breath. The little girl, who was standing at the door, was seemingly stuck in place, but tears—incandescent and jewel-like—were frozen within the rims of her eyelashes.**_

 _Cap froze at the sight of her, his eyes sticking to hers like a fish stuck-on fresh ice and his face draining of color. "I uh… Well, Bucky was—"_

" _Hush, love." She placed a finger over Steve's lips and walked straight over to Bucky, looking him dead in the eye with a "that's it?" kind of expression, before she took his face in her hands and shoved her lips hard against his. Bucky's eyes widened and the smug expression was wiped straight from his face, as he slowly closed his eyes with a surprised, yet sly smile crossing over his face with the plethora of emotions that ran past it. He tangled his fingers into Peggy's wild curls and pulled her closer to him._

 _Steve could only watch with a shocked, open-jawed expression on his face._ What the hell?

 _When Peggy finally pulled away, both her and Bucky were smirking at one another. "Now, James," she reached up and straightened the collar of his army-green uniform, "you've got to leave Captain Rogers alone. He's a bit sensitive, isn't he?_ Our _Steve." She was smiling at him like you smile when you're riding on the back of a wild mustang or screaming into the wind as you leap off a cliff. She couldn't contain herself._

" _Peggy." Bucky remarked with a wide, impressed smile on his face._

" _Carter." She finished for him. "And we can share him, the two of us, as long as you know those lips of yours are_ mine _, too—understood, soldier?" She reached down for something beneath his belt and Bucky released a crazed, yet booming chuckle._

" _Where did Steve find you?"_

" _I think you mean to say, love, 'where did I find Steve?'" She winked and threw her hair back behind her shoulder, before she walked nearly past Steve, but stopped to place a simple, yet adoring kiss on his cheek. "Loose lips, love,_ always _sink ships._ "

" _ **STEVEEEE." The little girl screamed at him—a high-pitched and heart-wrenching sound that probably could have broken glass. She was by his side, holding his head, which looked massive in her tiny hands, within her lap as she tried to block the blood. But it kept coming up through her fingers in bursts.**_

 _ **He was going to die, but for some reason, that was okay. For some reason, he didn't mind dying… "It's okay, doll," he whispered to her—to this tiny thing of a girl, "this was my**_ **choice** _ **."**_

Steve awoke to Bucky's snores and the dull morning light of dawn, coming in through the wide-pane glass window that looked out onto the glittering lake before the royal palace. He had stayed with Bucky that night, refusing to leave him as he slept. Shuri insisted he needed to _rest_ , and Steve agreed he did—but he could rest with him there. For God's sake, he had been without Buck for nearly eighty years, at that point, he wasn't going to leave him now. They were curled into one another, Bucky's head resting on Steve's chest, while Steve's massive arm was wrapped around on top of his side, as if to guard him from the unseen threats of the world. His thumb gently, unconsciously, ran itself across the hard grooves of muscle on Bucky's arm. He murmured something in his sleep in Russian, before he settled once more—closer to Steve, if that was possible—and continued to deeply breathe, quietly, yet—to Cap's relief— _soundly_.

Steve was looking up at the ceiling, still trying to process everything he had been told about Peggy. But it was like trying to catch a falling building with two hands, you couldn't do it, or else you'd be crushed entirely. It was just so… _unbelievable._ It wasn't unbelievable that Peggy—stubborn and blessed with thundering decisiveness—would choose to rot within the walls of HYDRA, rather than risk losing Bucky. He supposed his disbelief spanned from the fact that both of the people he had loved most in the world, had been taken from him, without him even realizing they had been taken.

If Natasha was here she would scold him for blaming himself, but he wasn't, in a sense, "blaming himself." Rather, he was _disappointed_ in his lack of ability to recognize what he had had, before he went under. He was disappointed that, despite all his talk about not trading lives, he had done exactly that, when he believed—a long, long time ago—in the power of the 'greater good.'

But the only reason he knew anything about the 'greater good' was because of Bucky and Peggy. _Hey, why don't you pick on someone your own size?_ Bucky had picked the guy right up off of Steve and threw him down the street. Obviously, neither of them were 'his size,' as Bucky had just kicked his ass.

 _Step forward, Hodge_ — Peggy daintily smiled, before she curled her fingers into a tight ball of iron, where she proceeded to sock him in the face. Hodge had broken and bruised his jaw for weeks after Peggy put it there.

They fought for _someone_ , and that alone made them greater than the mere mortals they surrounded themselves with. And perhaps that's what ate at Steve the most—who was he fighting for? SHIELD had been HYDRA. Humanity thought he belonged more in a prison, than in charge of an elite, enhanced team of superheroes. That's what it had to be, he thought, what it all came down to: Bucky and Peggy had believed in _something_ within _someone_ , and all Steve had ever done was pretend to see the world in black-and-white. And this was the part that really blew his mind: the two of them had let him, they had conspired, surmised, and agreed in some silent-unspoken, blood oath that Steve was too good to be touched… While the whole world thought a million different things about him, Peggy and Bucky, had only known two things about him: he was their friend and they loved him more than _anything_. They had let him have his fun in being a hero, when all he ever did was take a glorified nap and lie on some enlistment forms.

He glanced down at Bucky, his mouth had drooped open and his face, with his hair pulled back and away from his features, looked younger. He looked at ease; _content_. As he laid there, watching the boy—the one he had loved since he was 9 years old—Steve Rogers, for the first time, _regretted_ driving that plane into the ice. He regretted not being strong enough to love someone more than anything, to love an _idea_ more than a person. Because that kind of courage, to _love_ a human more than all else—someone who was capable of destroying you, someone who could burn you alive and not look back—that was powerful, that was miraculous; it was divine.

He made a promise that night, while he curled his arms tighter around Bucky, and it was perhaps the most significant, defining one he would ever make: he would love with everything, love unflinchingly, and he would bring Peggy home to them.

* * *

"So, let me get this straight—unlike your gay _ass_ —" Sam shot Bucky a look of utter and complete distaste, "the _two_ of you have a psycho ex-girlfriend who, and I quote Snowflake over here, 'may want to kill everyone in sight.'" Sam repeated Bucky's statement with an incredulous expression coming across his face.

"Don't forget the part where Barnes also mentioned that she was probably the one who assassinated JFK." Natasha added, in case any of them had forgotten _that_ fun fact. She looked dubious about the whole thing, but—if Steve had noticed, correctly—kind of impressed?

"Shit." Sam sighed and got up from his lounging chair by Lake Victoria's shoreline. He was wearing a pair of hot pink bathing suit bottoms because, according to Sam, 'only men who were confident in who they're fucking around with' could wear pink. "Why do the three of you always have the weirdest fucking problems? You know, I used to go to the grocery store—you know, normal people do that—and buy milk without people fucking trying to shoot me. Now, when I go to the store to buy some goddamn milk or eggs or _fuckin_ kale, I got assholes purposefully robbing the cash register because they see my blackass and think 'oh, it's Sam Wilson—Cap's best buddy—let's fuck some shit up.' Goddammit."

"What would you say that color is? Magenta?" Bucky asked Natasha—who was trying to hide a smile—as Bucky obliquely observed Sam's 'magenta'-clad ass.

"Can you _not_ be so gay right now?" Sam snapped at Bucky with a violently pissed expression crossing his face.

Steve waited until Sam's tirade was over, before he spoke. "Sam, I don't expect you to go with me."

"Yes, you do." Sam turned to look at him with a disappointed look on his face. "That's the whole thing about you, Steve." The tension between the group tightened visibly, as Bucky and Natasha grew silent and Bucky stopped trying to figure out Sam's bathing suit. "You expect the whole damn world of people. Which, in all fairness, you do it unintentionally, but God forbid, man, if any of us actually have lives." He crossed his arms and shook his head, as if he, himself, couldn't believe he had spoken so accusingly of Cap. And yet, there was a sharpness to him that neither of them had ever seen in easy-going, easily-accepting Sam Wilson. Something had changed within him, and Steve had never seen it coming.

"Sam?" Steve asked him softly. "You, okay?"

Sam looked down at his feet, kicking the sand between his toes. "I've followed you for a long time, Cap—three years; that's a long time for someone who doesn't take their siestas in ice. And the whole time we were out there, 'fightin' the fight,' findin' Snowflake, pissin' off your Avenger friends… I never questioned you because I knew, better than anybody, people in power make mistakes and do things for the wrong reasons… But here's this guy, the 'runnin' man,' Captain America, who fuckin' runs at 4 a.m. not because he needs to, but because he's still that kid who wanted to be better than the average guy.

Or, at least, I thought… Goin' on the run with you, Stevie, it's been fun—you got a crazyass life—but I didn't think I wouldn't be able to see my dad or call my mom or watch my nephew's football games. I-I didn't sign up for that, man." He drew a deep breath and raised his eyes to meet Steve's, as if he could gain some kind of strength from looking at his friend, even as he told him off. " _Now_ , you got this girl in your life, who—according to Barnes— _knows_ who you are. And I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say, somewhere in the last five years, she's watched the news or looked at a paper or went to New York—where there's a fuckin' monument dedicated to you. Because if she has, Steve, and you're gonna drag Nat and I with you, back into the fire—you gotta accept somethin': she knows you're alive and the chances are, she just doesn't really wanna talk to you."

Sam looked oddly arrested, and Steve, once again, felt burned. When everyone else—even Natasha—had doubted Bucky's ability to come back into the light of day, Sam Wilson, who lost his best friend, knew exactly what it felt like to have to rebuild your entire life after losing them. He had stood by Steve and, for two years, tried to help him hunt down his friend. _Sleeping is easier if you actually grow a pair and try, before you fail._ Sam had once told him, when they were standing at an old warehouse in Brooklyn, looking at where Steve's old childhood apartment had been. Steve had doubted their chances in finding Bucky at all, and Sam, well, he didn't really seem to mind what the chances were. Another friend willing to sacrifice his own life and the people in it for Steve, and Steve had had the audacity to not even thank him.

"I'm sorry, man, I really am." It was a stupid response and skimpily covered the bounds and leaps of faith Sam had taken for Steve, but it was all he could say. It was all he could ever say, to anyone.

"I know you are," Sam fixed him with a half-smile, that warm and goofy shine glittered in his soft brown eyes, "and that's why I don't bring it up. You're Captain America—that guy's got bigger problems than Sam Wilson—but you gotta be sure, if we do this, this girl of yours is worth all the hurt it's gonna take to bring her in."

"She is, I promise." Steve smirked a bit at the thought of Peggy and Sam meeting. It would be somethin', that's for sure. Then, he promptly got up from his seat on the other side of Bucky, and placed a hand on Sam's shoulder, squeezing it with a deathly serious expression on his face. "But you need to understand something here, _pal_ , Captain America is just a name that, inconveniently, the world decided to call me, but your problems—your family, the people you care about—they matter to _me_ , just as much as they matter to _you_. And I'm so sorry that you thought anything less than that; because _that's_ on me."

Sam's smile widened at Steve's speech, a genuine and true smile: "God _damn_ you are so white." He chuckled, but it was obvious, what Steve said meant the world to him.

"You are pretty white." Bucky remarked matter-of-factly and a nod—as if he _knew_.

"A memoir, written by the guy who calls himself the Winter Soldier." Natasha rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, Snowflake, fuck off." Sam teased with a good-natured grin on his face.

"Alright, guys, can we get back on track, please?" Steve asked, raising a brow and crossing his arms.

"Look at him tryin' to be all serious." Bucky burst out laughing. "You know, he used to wear pants when it was 98 degrees out because he would get worried the ladies from church would think he was a whore, if he wore shorts."

Steve blushed a hot shade of pink, while Natasha and Sam started to guffaw. "So, I had a few modesty issues—it was 1929, Buck, and it was _one_ time."

"'Modesty issues.' Jesus Christ, Steve." Sam was shaking his head, while Natasha—who was no longer even attempting to hide her smile—gave him a half-sympathetic, half-amused smirk. "But Peggy changed that, huh?"

The laughter and embarrassment died on Steve's tongue. Bucky must have seen Steve's face and answered quickly with: "Peggy changed everything." Bucky met his friend's eyes, a look that was somewhere between amusement and heartbreak. He cocked his head to analyze the way Steve's features changed like the seasons of the year, with the mere mention of their curly-haired friend. "She was the first person Steve wanted to have sex with—for a while there, we all thought he was destined to the priesthood." Bucky chuckled. "Then he saw Peggy Carter and God said: 'let there be erections for Steve Rogers.'"

" _Bucky_." Steve snapped, realizing what his friend had said.

"Sorry, man, it's true—even before me, there was Peggy." The two longtime friends met eyes as Natasha and Sam were still chuckling. But it was true, Peggy knew, before Bucky—Steve Rogers was destined for greater things. She was one of the few people who, even after the serum, believed in the power of the 'little guy' from Brooklyn—not the supercharged celebrity that came after his procedure.

"When was the last time you saw her?" Steve asked quietly. Natasha and Sam slowly began to realize the funny business was over… Maybe, it had been over with the mention of Peggy, in the first place.

"In Moscow, May of 2013." Bucky replied as he sighed heavily. The teasing attitude, which he was so good at pretending for moments, at a time, could so easily evaporate like rain puddles on a hot day. "Pierce wanted her, not me, to go after you in D.C. He thought it would be better if she did it because at least… Well, she had a brain—she would know how to use it against you." Steve knew what he meant—Peggy's brain hadn't been fried, her memories hadn't been warped, she knew who she was. She was in control, Bucky was unpredictable.

"And why didn't she?"

"She convinced Pierce to send me, instead, said I would do more damage to you, than she would. Turns out she was wrong, it worked the other way around… Because seeing you," Bucky shook his head with an expression that said nothing else had ever mattered to him—not the War, not HYDRA, not even his own past—except Steve, "to say in the least, you really did a number on me, Stevie."

A smile graced Steve's lips that could have only been reserved for Bucky, as he leaned down and kissed him gently.

* * *

Cap slipped on his leather jacket and felt like he was slipping on an old friend. It had been a minute, but he knew the feel and mold of the worn leather like it was the back of his hand. He looked in the mirror and found his stubble—which he had planned on shaving, had somehow managed to become a bit _more_ than stubble.

"That beard makes you look like a guy who could cut down some serious trees." Bucky quipped as he was coming out of the shower. He had a towel wrapped around his waist with a precarious tie and his hair was knotted in a small, yet messy bun behind his head. "I mean, I'm talkin' oak, juniper, deciduous, some other kind of tallass tree."

"Let me guess, those are the only three trees you know of?" Steve looked at him through the mirror behind him, a small twitch of a smile appearing on his face.

"It may be, _Rogers_ , or maybe I didn't feel like being a smartass." Bucky snapped at him in a sarcastic tone, with a snarky little smile on his face.

"You've never passed up an opportunity yet." Steve turned to look at him, the great expanse of Bucky Barnes. He was laying on his back, his elbows propped up against the mattress, with his eyes alive and warm as they stayed on him. His face, while it was still filled with its same-old 'beautiful knife-cutting sharpness,' looked fuller and healthier than Steve had seen it in a while. Wakanda, to Cap's great relief, had poured its bounty and nourishment into his friend. He looked a little tired, he looked a little sad, but he looked _better_. Steve would have to remember this moment, he would have to, because he didn't know when he would see Bucky again.

Bucky seemed to know this was it, at least for the time being, as he sat up and looked up at Steve from beneath his long eyelashes. He didn't want him to go, he realized with a painful revelation. He thought he would be okay with this, but if you really asked him—if you sat in front of Bucky Barnes, looked into his slate-blue eyes, and popped the question, he would say no. He was absolutely 100% not okay with _any_ of this.

Peggy needed to be brought in, he got that. She needed Steve, he got that, too. And Steve had to do this, for him and _her_ —he wasn't fucking stupid. He _understood_. But he guessed, at the end of the rope, hanging by the threads, over the edge of a ravine, was a scrappy, selfish kid who didn't want his best friend to leave. This must have been what Steve felt like, watching him go off to War all those years ago. He wanted to go with him, but Peggy would know—the moment she saw him, he wasn't well… And he knew, he would put Steve directly in danger.

"What? No kiss goodbye?" Steve asked him as he smirked, trying to lighten the intermittent tension that had settled over the room.

Bucky sniffed hard and blinked back the prickling behind his eyes and swallowed the lump in the back of his throat. No more tears, Steve didn't need to see that. Instead he took in a shallow breath, trying to ease the sickening achiness that was settling over him like on the eve of a flu epidemic, as he raised his eyes to meet Steve's. "C'mere, asshole." He stood up and took Steve's face in his hands, meeting his eyes.

"You have to take care of yourself, _okay_?" Bucky told him, leaving no room for argument in his voice. "You _have_ to… You…" He broke off as the lump in the back of throat balled up again and sealed off everything he had been trying to say. Bucky's lips were moving, he realized, but no sound was coming out. He shook his head as his face wrinkled up, a noiseless sob escaped his chest and he turned away from Steve. He couldn't do this to him, not now, _not when he was going off to save the world, again…_

Steve's eyes widened as his features spread apart in crestfallen disbelief. "Buck… _Honey_ …" He whispered softly. He grabbed his shoulder and forced him to look him in the face. His hand going to the back of his head, as his fingers scooped up into the back of his messy little bun. "Look at me," he whispered to him, pressing his forehead against his. " _James_ , look at me." He spoke firmly. Bucky's blue eyes hesitantly drew up to meet Steve's, an agonizing fear of something beckoned to him there. _A kid—he was a kid—frozen in the snow for_ weeks, _before someone found him…_

"I'm going to come back, okay?" He said to him. "And I won't be alone because you and me and Peggy…we're going to be together." He spoke to him gingerly, yet urgently. His eyes never left _his_. "Now, be with me here, Buck, because I need you, now, more than ever."

Bucky hesitated for a moment—a moment too long, before Steve slammed his lips into his. He slightly recoiled, but Steve, refusing to pull away and allow this moment—this precious moment to slink away from them—wound his arms around him, tightly. Eventually, Bucky sunk against Steve, allowing his strong arms to entwine around him and fill him up with everything that was good and wholesome within the world. His lips against his, the saltiness of his tears against the salivation of their lips, and the overwhelming, refreshing sound of _life_ outside their window—it was all happening; all of the universe was tucked between the two of them.

"I love you, Buck." Steve whispered to him somewhere along the way, between kisses and the gentle mingling of tongues. "I love you more than _anything_ …" They fell onto the bed, Bucky in his towel and Steve in his old leather jacket. But in a few minutes, anything they had bothered wearing before, was off and in piles on the floor, including, a towel and an old leather jacket.


	5. Natalia

**MOSCOW – MAY OF 2013**

 _Longing. Rusted. Seventeen._

" **Barnes, you need to focus, focus on me.** _ **Look**_ **, at me."**

Colors. Colors were spinning around the room, and he was unable to identify any of them. Dark figures and faceless blobs were speaking to him, but he couldn't understand them. They were speaking a mix of five different languages. His brain was exploding. Exploding into the dark.

 _Daybreak. Furnace. Nine._

" **GET OUT OF THE WAY,** _ **NOW**_ **."**

HANDS REACHING. A TRAIN CAR SCREAMING ABOVE HIM. FALLING INTO ICE. FALLING FOREVER. DARKNESS. OH GOD WHY IS IT SO DARK? ICE. HE WAS FROZEN IN FUCKING ICE. HOW THE FUCK WAS HE FROZEN? DARKNESS AND ICE. DARKNESS AND ICCCCEEEEE.

 _Benign. Homecoming. One. Freight car._

SCREAMS ECHOING INTO ETERNITY AS IF NOTHING ELSE HAD EVER EXISTED. THERE WAS NOTHING THAT HAD EVER EXISTED BESIDES DECADENCE, DECAY, AND BLOOD. BLOOD WAS EVERYWHERE. HE WAS BORN IN BLOOD, BATHED IN BLOOD, AND WOULD DRINK BLOOD UNTIL THE MOMENT HE

" _ **James**_ **,** " **the screaming stopped for a split second, as his eyes moved to meet the colorful, intoxicating blues and golds and pinks of the girl with the kaleidoscope eyes. She reached out and lightly rested her fingertips on his breast. He could feel her power coursing through his blood, simmering the raging voices, as her eyes met his.**

 **She gave him a name. A name he could feel himself understand and know, for a moment, it was his. She had renamed him, this girl. A remaking of the biblical genesis, a creation story, a divine pact with God. She looked into his eyes and he knew she loved him. The Love of the Creator. He knew, he had loved her, too.**

 _Emi. Soft features. Softer words. She had loved no one else, but_ her _, until_ him _. She had fallen in love to an unfortunate extent. Nothing within HYDRA can grow. Nothing can function within its own capacity,_ **she had once told him,** _it has to rely on something. That's how they live on, through parasitic consequence. To exist of their own volition would be nearly impossible. So, for all its worth, we will only return their favor. We will_ love. _For that is something that breaks us from their feeding, mewling, gaping mouths and we will live within it. We will revel. We will_ thrive.

" **Who am I?" He asked her softly with unnamable, unexplainable emotion filling up his eyes.**

" **Who do you** _ **want**_ **to be?" She whispered to him with the softest of words. Her words curled up in sweet-smelling smoke that sank into his skin, into his blood stream, and made his mind clear of the hydraulic toxins HYDRA had injected him with.**

" **I…" Such a pretensive word—'I.' He was so quick to use it, despite not knowing anything about what it meant. "How can I…?" All that there was, at this moment, all there had ever been, was Emi. To answer her meant to find something outside of her, to venture forward into an unknowing world. How could he, possibly** _ **Freight car**_

" **James," the girl whispered, her eyes widening. "James, stay with** _ **me**_ **." Her words were trying to bridge a gap.** _There was_ **a depthless ravine that he could feel himself** _hanging off of._

 _One._ **"Jesus Christ, JAMES—STOP IT, NOW, COME BACK TO ME."** _ **Homecoming.**_ _A city street, lined with edge-to-edge apartments. Around the corner from the apartment, around the corner from him was the house of_

 _ **Benign.**_ _TheLittleGuyWhoWasn'tAfraidOfAFightWhoSavedHim._ ENTIRE CITIES BURNED IN HIS WAKE. ENTIRE WORLDS DESTROYED BECAUSE OF TheLittleGuyWhoWasn'tAfraidOfAFightWhoSavedHim. A depthless ravine that he could feel himself slipping from.

 _Nine._ James, please don't do this… _Ice and darkness…. There was_ ONLY EVER ICE AND DARKNESS. ONLY ICE AND ONLY DARKNESS. YOU WILL NEVER GROW. YOU WILL NEVER CONTINUE FORWARD. THERE IS ONLY ICE AND ONLY DARKNESS. JamesBuchannanBarnes. ANameThatDidn'tEvenFitHim. Who do you _want_ to be?

Furnace. Daybreak. Seventeen.

Rusted.

JAMES STOP PLEASE STOP JAMES NONONONONO JAMESSTOPTHISPLEASESTOPNO THIS ISN'T YOU JAMES STOP STOP—

 _Longing._

* * *

M16 shoved past the HYDRA scientists. "Move." She warned with a dangerous and vengeful voice. They were standing at least ten feet away from the window, as instructed by their superiors. _Don't get too close to the glass when the asset is unstable. Don't tap the glass when the asset is unstable. Don't interact with the asset when said-asset is unstable. Don't speak to the asset when said-asset is unstable. Wait for instructions from Agent Jones, when asset is unstable._ And as she got up to the glass, she knew no one could help him, now. If he couldn't aid them in anyway, then they would kill him. They would make her do it. M16—the one with the steady hands when she snapped the necks of children, the one without any emotion whatsoever, the one who still _had_ a name.

There were bodies all around him. Piles and heaps of agents who had tried to steady him. But 16 knew this wasn't one of the times they could possibly reach him. Emi had been the only one who could have done it, and she laid there, along with the others, a broken and decapitated corpse. He was screaming over her, holding her detached head in his hands. His face was covered in blood, his hair was dripping in it, and his metal fingers were clenched tightly around a dismembered organ of some kind or another.

"The asset is unstable." The foremost analyst remarked. He was a bald man with glasses that didn't match his fat head. _Four years, tops. Heart attack at 45. Cholesterol buildup._ She ticked off his fatal end as easily as an ingenious doctor could.

16 turned to look at the scientists and they all looked back at her expectantly. These squealing, needy children of the 21st Century. Where were the scientists of back in the day, who were just as sharply trained as her? As Emi? As 'the asset'? The ones who didn't flinch or freeze at the sight of blood. They were gone, replaced with insolent and beady-eyed sheep. "Oh, _really,_ Sitwell? He is?" M16 snapped with a venomous spark in her eyes. "I didn't notice."

She moved to the door of the asset's room and pressed her hand to the biometric scan on the front of the door. "M16, he is _unstable_." Sitwell repeated.

"And who's going to fix that? Agent Jones?" She fired back at him. " _You?_ " She burst out into laughter, hard and carnivorous laughter. To the scientists standing before her, it must have been a truly horrific sound. As it didn't reach her eyes or really even change her face. It was simply a sound that moved from her lips to the space around her. Perhaps she was attempting to sound human, attempting to fake the emotions she was no longer capable of producing. She cut it off instantly. Not that she even found it funny, in the first place.

"No, it's going to be me because it's _always_ me." She turned sharply and walked into the room.

Immediately, she came to a jagged, rocky conclusion: he was a mess and she couldn't fix him. Not this time, not ever. The blood of those he had killed was sinking into his blood stream, poisoning him, and destroying everything he had ever been or could be. If there had ever been a James Barnes, she doubted there was one, now.

She stepped over Emi's mutilated body—not even glancing down at her liason, partner, and friend, her tear ducts had dried up long ago—and grabbed his face, ripping his gaze away from the disembodied head he carried. "Put down Emilie, James." He was looking right at her, but he didn't see her. He didn't see anyone.

He didn't drop the girl's head, either. Instead, his fingers were obsessively clawing into her eye sockets, as if he could make them shine with the kaleidoscope coloring they once had. M16 could only spot grey ringing around Emi's irises. "James, did you hear me? Put. Down. Emilie." She sunk to his level, kneeling so their eyes could meet. "She's dead, James, you killed her." Her voice was emotionless, calm, and offered no relief from the revelation that dawned on Barnes as he blinked once, twice, _three_ times.

He had killed Emilie. He looked down at her head, down at her body, and then, he looked up at 16 and started to shake. "I did this…" He whispered, rocking on his haunches. "I did this."

She frowned at his reaction. Blame of the self. That wasn't good. Shame. Guilt. _Emotion._ He was feeling, and that was not what he was supposed to do. The programming was wearing off. Their code, however well it had worked in his early days, was finally breaking down. If they kept this up, Barnes would be so diluted within these messy spaces between emotion and feeling, that she would have to take care of him. Because watching his hysterical face, M16 knew, he could never be glued back into HYDRA's fixtures. He would be, as they said of all their ex-agents, "retired."

She swallowed and blinked. There was a split second, a moment of hesitation, and then she looked up at him. A decision had been made. Her brown eyes studied the manic face of James Barnes. And then she leaned in, brought his quivering face to her lips, and kissed him softly on the mouth, feeling the iron taste of blood on her tongue; but she didn't care. She felt as if she had never cared about anything, and she wouldn't start now.

" _No."_ Barnes screamed and shoved her off of him with the force of a two-ton semi. 16 was thrown against the wall with a hard _crack_. She groaned in pain and rolled back over onto her stomach, blood from the bodies was pasted on the side of her face as she got back up. A murderous look crossed her face.

"That will do, James, that will _do_." She pulled out a knife from her belt and sprang at him, launching her legs around his waist and slamming the two of their bodies against the wall. There was a flurry of activity as James' hands wrapped around her throat and M16's eyes bulged with mad, intensive rage. She flipped them over onto the floor with the twist of her legs, arms entangling and legs colliding, and the blood splashing over them like a tsunami.

The knife—dripping with blood—hung in her mouth like an eagle's talons wrapping around a dead, limp fish that she had just pulled from a blood-red ocean. She could hardly relish in her victory in 'coming out on top'—as they say—before she was flipped onto her back and Barnes' metallic metal hand went for her abdomen. He was utilizing his training, attempting to rip her organs from her gut. She wrapped her legs around his neck and began to strangle him with her powerful thigh muscles.

Barnes was heaving and coughing for breath, his grip on her forearms weakening just enough for her to pull the knife from her teeth and jab it into his stomach. "Don't _ever_ tell me 'no.'" She whispered into his ear, before she pulled the knife right out of his gut and let him collapse up against the wall. Her face was marred with cuts and scrapes from their encounter and blood drenched them both.

She stood above his gasping, broken body. The flesh wound wouldn't kill him, but he would be compromised for a few hours. Pierce would be pissed she had ruined him for the day. She didn't care. He could live without the asset for a day, and if he couldn't, then tough _shit_. She kneeled to him and grabbed his chin with an unidentifiable look gracing her features. How many times had Emi been in this position? _Break the will, and you break everything_. She had once told her, and now as she looked at James, a mess of a man, a mess of a monster. She knew Emilie had been right.

HYDRA had done their job too well when they broke him. They had broken him to the point where there was no way of him ever complying again.

She leaned down and kissed him, and this time, James listened to her. He responded with a twist of his lips, and the relief in her touch must have been what made him _remember_ the feeling of simply being _touched_. She whispered something—one single word—to him and James' lips went limp against hers. His eyes were wide, frozen on the light above them. An unnatural and cold blue glittering within the deep rims of his irises.

"Do you understand?" She asked him softly, refusing to turn or give any indication to the scientists outside the window that she had said anything.

Reluctantly, mechanically, and reverently, James Buchanan Barnes nodded.

* * *

The last time Steve had been in Moscow, it had been 1943, and mostly everything had been destroyed by the Germans. Plus, it had been fucking cold. However, when he stepped off the quinjet this time, the great Russian city had been rebuilt back up to its full and beautiful height. He would have felt, like in most cities, out of place. Had it not been for Natasha, who was originally born there, and seemed to know everything about it.

"The Red Square." She gestured to a non-square like center of the city (it was more of a rectangle, if Steve had to be honest), where apparently, the President of Russia, the State History Museum, the Kremlin, and Saint Basil's Cathedral all resided.

"That's a lot of _red_." Sam said as he eyed the spindling, yet odd, colorful shapes of the towers on Saint Basil's.

Natasha smirked at Sam's discomfort. "What, Wilson? Don't like the color palette?" Nat, who in most cases, was coldly silent, until she felt the need to speak— _no,_ until she absolutely _needed_ to speak—had been lifelessly wordless the entire way there. However, upon arriving, there was a change in her, Steve had noticed, a loosening and a tightening in two different places. This was the place of her girlhood, her mother country and mother tongue… And yet, it was the same place that _Natalia Romanova_ died. Here, she had stood, gun raised to her head, before Clint Barton—on this red, blood-soaked ground, and made a vow, within herself, to _kill_ Natalia… But the place we come from—the physical landmarks and grooves and lumps and molds of the earth—shape us and make us, whether we like it or not. So, like he had said, a loosening on Natasha, and a tightening on the seamless boundary that was _Natalia_.

As they walked around, Nat throwing out miscellaneous facts about the Square: "this tsar was executed there," "I shot a man from a window here," or, Steve's personal favorite, "that museum has an interesting exhibit on birds, Sam, if you're interested"—he couldn't help but feel slightly on edge. Despite Natasha's insistence that she had friends here who could help them, he assumed they weren't the kinds of friends you hung around and got fondue with. In fact, he was pretty sure they were all still very Soviet-oriented and very-bloodthirsty. It was thoughts like these, that made him wish he had his shield—strapped to his back, with the familiar weight and balance to reassure him against any enemy. While Shuri had given him a new vibranium shield—one that conveniently elongated at the mere magnetic pulse of his suit—it just wasn't the same. Not that he regretted giving up his original shield to Tony. After all, he knew he had it coming when he stopped believing in the power of compromise. _But_ even with his aviators, his navy blue cap, and leather jacket—he knew he stood out. He was a _big_ guy, there was no denying that, and people—normal unassuming civilians—could pick up on that without much assistance. It was no wonder, he felt so edgy. But he tried not to think about it, Natasha knew was she was doing.

He hoped.

They had been walking around for close to two hours, then, before they stopped to get coffee across the Monumental Kremlin. At this point, Steve was getting restless. Why hadn't they made a move? This is what you did—tourist attractions and museum visits—when you had time, and if it was up to Steve, Peggy had waited long enough.

He absent-mindedly sipped his—yes, straight up— _black_ coffee as Natasha and Sam were speaking to one another in soft, purposefully low tones. "Natasha," Steve spoke up, "when are your supposedly 'old friends' going to show?" His blue-green eyes moved to meet hers, which were now, at his directive, staring coolly into his.

Natasha's eyes narrowed sharply at his leading question. "We're establishing location." She whispered to him, her eyes had drained of any kind of emotion she had expressed earlier. "Because, unlike you two, I've known we were being followed the moment we stepped off the plane."

Steve's blood ran ice cold. He and Sam turned to each other and, as casually as possible, turned back behind them to look for any strange figures staring back. But neither of them saw anything. "What the hell is goin' on, Nat?" Sam snapped at her. "What the _hell_ is goin' on?"

Natasha laughed at Sam's question—a twinkling, adoring sound as she leaned over and placed her head in the crook of his neck, taking out her iPhone and snapping a selfie. "You didn't think we would come to _my_ city, and there wouldn't be Black Widow agents on us, when they realized who I was?" She had a plastered smile on her face as she spoke through her teeth, a fake and mesmerizing picture snapped into place onto her camera roll. Sam's expression being entirely too surprised, to be taken as something genuine.

"I ran away. They'll want to interrogate me and, in the process, you two will get killed." She was still grinning in that artificial, yet dazzling kind of way. "So, we're establishing location." She kissed Sam's cheek as she snapped another picture. "The longer I can postpone an ambush, the better chance we have at actually surviving this." The whole cutsy tourist thing she was doing, her smiles, her laugh… It was all an act. She was simply 'establishing location.' She was blending in to a foreign, unknown environment _so_ easily. It kind of made Steve sick to his stomach, to think of how casually she replicated real happiness…

Her red hair suddenly seemed too bright and too red for it to be natural. It blended in with the red around them, it blended into the very buildings, the very people, the very _color_ of the sky. Everything, Steve thought, had seemed to bleed into the crimson scarlet waves that Natasha had been notoriously known for. But how could Nat have truly changed, if she still blended in with everything around her?

And that's when Natasha saw her—the girl, young and strong-featured, sharp and toxically dangerous. She had bright, ephemeral golden hair that was tossed up into an artfully messy, yet refined updo, and seemed to be wearing a nondescript black dress. Nat would have missed her, had she not been reading the book— _The Communist Manifesto_ by Karl Marx. How Russian and how fucking apt. She stood up, ignoring Steve's staring and Sam's protests for her to 'sit her ass back down,' before she was by the side of the other girl.

The blonde didn't even move a centimeter, at her very proximity, and Natasha, annoyed it had come to this—rolled her sleeve up to reveal a tattoo on the underside of her forearm, before she slammed it down in the girl's book. "Yelena." She remarked softly. "Let's not make this harder than it has to be."

She spoke in Russian to the girl, Steve realized, terribly sharp and merciless Russian. It was a violently, yet beautiful language, as he could hear the arches of words sharpened into knives, vowels turned into unclicked pistols, and the softness like that of wildflowers crushed into poison. It collided with beauty, but at the same time, refined it into a deadly discourse. At that moment, Steve watched Natasha unroll her sleeve to reveal something on the underside of her forearm. He careened over Sam's shoulder, trying to see what it was.

"What is it?" Steve asked Sam, who was also leaning over to watch the scene.

"It's a spider." He remarked with a frown. "A fucking spider."

Yelena, her eyes never leaving the book before her, turned the page. "You didn't get rid of the Widow." She observed without eyes, it seemed.

"Why would I have reason to?" She snapped at her. What a stupid fucking observation. If this had been back in the old days, she would have taken a gun to Yelena's head for such a stupidass observation. But she was different, now, she didn't kill people over stupid statements. Well, maybe that wasn't entirely true.

"Since you now run with American operatives," she slid a soft piece of red velvet into the middle of the book, as a mark, it seemed and moved her eyes to meet Natasha's. "I would figure, among other things, you wouldn't need it, anymore. After all, the silk of the spider does come off easier than you would think."

Sam and Steve watched with heated interest as Natasha and Yelena continued to sharply speak in Russian. Steve could feel the tension between them, even without even speaking the language. "You brought your wings, right?" He asked Sam as he watched Nat's fists coil into tense balls of anger.

"Yeah, never leave home without em'." Sam said softly as he watched the scene enfold before him.

Natasha over her cryptic bullshit already, exasperatedly sighed, and slid into the seat across from Yelena. "Let me speak to Alexi, Yelena, he's the only one who can help me. And honestly, he's the only one I _want_ to talk to."

"You don't think he'll just want to kill you, after what you did to him? _To us?_ " She snapped.

For the first time, in a long time, Natasha's expressionless, cold, and desolate façade crumbled. Her face was torn apart in six different directions, contorting and separating itself, as if she couldn't keep her identities straight. When really, leaving Alexi Shostakov had been the hardest thing she ever did. She doubted she could do it a second time. But then again, this was one thing Natasha was sure of: Alexi would do everything, in his power, to get her back. She sniffed and leaned back into her seat, crossing her arms, and fixing Yelena a look with a surprising amount of confidence, despite her expression's break a moment ago. "Something tells me he would love to talk to me."

Yelena smiled—a nondescript curl of her lips, not an actual smile that showed any true joy. "Then you'll know where to find us." Within seconds, the blond-haired Russian beauty was gone.

* * *

"It's inside the KGB's fortress." Natasha remarked with a matter-of-fact, yet careless shrug. They were back inside their hotel, sitting on Steve's bed as Nat—standing before them, arms crossed—filled them in on her conversation with Yelena. "Otherwise known as the Kremlin."

"The Kremlin?!" Sam scoffed "Are you fuckin' kidding me? Nat, no one—neither of yo asses is breakin' into the Kremlin."

Natasha shrugged. "It's not breaking into, if you've been granted access since you were—" she paused to bob her head in concentration, as if picking between ages— "four? Five?" She didn't seem positive, either way.

"There's really not any other way to meet these guys?" Steve asked with a dubious expression on his face.

"If there were, I would have done it by now, Rogers." She snapped sharply, not in the mood for his unintentional, yet patronizing bullshit questions. However, she usually had a slightly wider threshold for this kind of thing, when it came to Steve—and he knew it, too, as she looked at his face and saw he was taken aback by her words. "Alexi is the only one who has access to the KGB's database, which would have info on Carter, if there _is_ anything to know about her." She said softer, this time, seemingly feeling bad for lashing out.

Steve nodded, then, and knew Nat was right. There was no other choice here. "Alright, Nat, how do we do this?"

Sam shook his head and facepalmed. "Jesus Christ."

* * *

They walked directly through the front doors.

"Well, that was easy." Sam noted as they filed into an extravagant reception area. Which, to Steve's distaste, was painted _red_.

And yes, it had been easy. _Too_ easy. Steve had grown up without running water for a majority of his childhood—nothing was _easy_. Especially, not breaking into one of the most secure buildings in all of Western Civilization to date. He was over-the-moon positive that it was a trap. His fingers clasped around the compact shield in his jacket pocket, anxiously anticipating when he would have to use it.

Natasha walked up to the receptionist at the front desk, perking her lips in a friendly smile. "I'm here to see Alexi—he's expecting me." She spoke in fluent Russian, and Steve and Sam—once again—were at a loss for understanding.

The receptionist, as polite as she was, seemed to be held in disbelief that Natasha had just asked to see the Director of the KGB, with all the ease and grace in the world. Had Natasha not been one of the greatest assassins ever known in modern history, she wouldn't have detected the small frown that appeared on the receptionist's face, before she nodded cheerfully, and offered a 'yes, miss, one moment' as she picked up the phone on her desk. Good. She probably realized it was better not to question anything, at all, when it came to the KGB.

There was a 10 second rapid-fire conversation that occurred over the phone—it seemed to be mostly arguing, in Nat's opinion—before the receptionist put down the phone and looked back up at her, offering that same incredibly fabricated smile. "He was, indeed, expecting you. He even said you don't require an escort."

"Oh, believe me, I don't." Nat smiled sweetly, before she pulled away from the desk and turned back to her boys. She jerked her head towards the elevators behind the desk, before she headed towards them, knowing Steve and Sam would follow behind her.

As soon as they got on the elevator, Sam let out a relieved sigh. He had been holding his breath. "Why didn't they try to kill us?" He asked her with a frown.

"Were you hoping they _would_?" Steve asked with an incredulous raise of his eyebrow.

Natasha was looking at her nails, not even bothering to raise her eyes to meet Sam's concerned gaze. "Alexi wants to talk to me." She said casually. "They're not going to kill us, before _we_ chat."

"Sounds rational." Steve noted, as Sam let out a snicker.

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open to reveal a large, yet grandiose _red_ room. Gold leaf and elaborately lined the walls, which contrasted with the rich scarlet that wrapped itself around of the room. For as beautiful as it was, there were no windows or doors, besides the elevator they came by. So much for a quick escape. _The Red Room where I was trained…_ Natasha knew this had been coming, but nothing prepared her for the shocking effect of seeing it again. The floor and ceiling mirrored one another, as pale red wooden floors, matched the wooden paneling of the ceiling above. It was frightening, it was grand, and it was everything they made her to be.

But she couldn't let her past get to her—not now, of all places. She stepped out of the elevator and there, beautiful as he was sharp, was Alexi Shostakov. He looked like a god. A king. His cheekbones, his lips, the shape of his body—it all screamed irresistible, lethal power. But she knew better than to believe his looks. Alexi was different. He had been soft, at his core, and perhaps that's why she had fallen in love with him, in the first place. Alexi had dared, within the walls of the Red Room, to be vulnerable. But even so, that had been a long, long time ago… And, looking at him now, tall and massively muscled, with his navy-blue velvet pants and a button-up crisp white shirt, she knew something was different about her ex-fiancé. Velvet pants don't scream 'I kill and murder,' unless you're a trained Russian assassin. Which, to no one's surprise, he was the best of the best, even comparable to _her_.

"Natalia," he spoke to her softly, her name, on his tongue, sounded like orchid petals gently falling in a summer breeze.

Oh, _no_. She realized, she wouldn't be able to do this. She turned back to look at Steve and Sam, standing ready and alert. She swallowed. This wasn't like the other times, where the three of them could fight off HYDRA or Tony's tantrums or Zemo. HYDRA had been a parasite. It had been weak in nature because it was determined to thrive in darkness and shadow, not in the light of day. The KGB, on the other hand, was an immortal creature that had gone under many names, transformed into many different things, and still, at the end of the day, had all the power of Russia, at its fingertips. Everyone knew the KGB existed, there was no need for it to hide in cellars of federal governments or in the closets of children.

HYDRA had been a joke, in comparison to the KGB.

Plus, it didn't help that the man that Nat had once proclaimed as the 'loveofherlife,' was the head of it. "Alexi." She swallowed and stiffened her shoulders, closing her eyes up to any _possible_ portrayal of the tormenting emotions she felt within.

"It has been awhile, hasn't it?" He spoke in Russian, and this time, Natasha didn't want to respond. She was done with that part of herself, forever.

"English, Alexi, there is nothing you or I have to say, that my friends can't hear." She firmly pressed. Her heart was racing like a cheetah tied to a chain, trying to escape the cage of her chest.

Alexi frowned at that, his eyes—in contrast to hers—were on full display. He was not hiding anything from her. The hurt he felt at her rejection of their native language, was very real and very visible. It was a betrayal. "Very well, Natalia." Despite the accent, his English was remarkably articulate. It was lovely, really. Salty and sharp, emphasized and meaningful. _You are like a rising sun, in the ashes of this place, Natalia._ The whispers of their past tickled the skin on her neck, as if he had just spoken to them to her, feeding them into the dips and furrows of her nether regions.

"I need the passcode to the database." She remarked. She would not, _not_ , engage in conversation. It was Alexi. He knew Natalia better than anyone, he could dismantle her in a moment, if he wanted to.

Alexi could only laugh, bitterly. "You're utilizing your negotiation training—on _me_ , of all people." He shook his head, a hateful smile on his face. "Good," his word was frosted with ice, but it was easy to tell, he was pained by this exchange, "I will play along in your dialogue: 'And why, Agent Romanova, should I give you the passcode?'" He remarked in a ridiculously over-zealous voice. It was obvious he was making fun of the script Black Widow agents were taught to use when negotiating a deal.

Natasha's breath hitched in her throat. She felt like she was made of thinly woven thread and Alexi was holding the end of it, slightly tugging until she would become a mere pile of string. "You owe me." She said as confidently as she could.

Her old lover burst out laughing, and obviously, it wasn't the kind of laughter that was done in the pretext of something _funny_. No, this was disbelief, a hysterical break in Alexi's mind. A strangled, tortured, and garbled sound. " _I_ owe _you_?" The pain in his eyes was like a dragon, waking up after centuries of sleeping. Except, Natasha knew it had been there for all time, she just drove the knife in deeper to the beast's stomach. "And how's that, Natalia?" He raised an eyebrow, unbuttoning his shirt. "Because, if you asked me, my dear, I would say the only thing I owe you—are _scars_." He let the button-down drop to the floor around him, to show the terrible, red, and angry scars that disfigured his chest and back.

Natasha tried not to flinch at the sight of them; at the sight of the wounds that she, and she alone, was the reason, his body was blistered and twisted in ways it shouldn't have been. "Alexi…" She whispered softly, shaking her head with a sympathetic expression on her face. _We don't belong in this world... No, my dear, we don't belong anywhere._ Alexi's words echoed soundlessly within her mind as she watched him mercilessly glare at her. His scars had made him into something beyond anything they had ever been before... They had twisted him beyond repair.

"Oh, you don't find this attractive? You should see Yelena's. Hers are far worse." He held his arms at his sides, allowing the wicked scars to glimmer in the red light of the room, like blood washing over his pale skin.

"Alright, _that's_ enough, _Ivan_." Sam spoke up—the anger was _tangible_ in his voice. He moved to stand by Natasha's side. "Frankly, I don't care what happened to you or 'how you got those scars,' but I _do_ care about my friend—and right now, you're hurtin' her feelings. So, here are your options: give us the passcode and we'll be on our merry fuckin' way; or, my friend and I just bust your ass, and you still, in the end, whether yo whiteass likes it or not, _give us the goddamn passcode_."

Natasha's eyes widened at Sam's outburst. Her pale face drained of all the color as she sharply turned to Alexi—his face, which had been all feeling and emotion thirty seconds ago, was a mask of cold and featureless clay.

"Sam—" Steve had visibly tensed behind her, she could see his fingers clutching the shield in his pocket, getting ready for a fight.

Despite it all, Alexi only smiled. A vicious, cruel, and visceral smile. His eyes directly watching Sam's. "Ah, I see now, you love her _too_."

Sam froze in his tracks as his menacing expression was instantly wiped from his face and replaced with utter shock. Natasha's eyes tried to meet Sam's, trying to get him to deny it, but the truth—glaring and monumental—was there, frozen upon his face. It had been there, all along, despite her inability to notice it, or perhaps she had, but had failed to recognize it; the affection, the curious gazes, the inability to ever leave her side at the cusp of a fight…

Alexi had been right.

Sam Wilson was _in love_ with Natasha Romanoff.

"A word of advice, Sergeant Wilson, loving this woman is like loving water—"

"Shut the hell up." Sam gasped out, it sounded like his chest was about to burst, interrupting Alexi's complicated metaphor. "The passcode, _now_." He hissed, his teeth rigid against his lips.

The Director of the KGB offered a mournful "really?" glance at Natasha, who could only look to him with a pleading gaze. _Please_ , she begged with those massively intense green eyes, _don't do this. Don't destroy him…_ Alexi cocked his head in tentative thought. He could, he could destroy Sam Wilson. _That is,_ _if he hadn't already…_ She thought sadly as she watched her friend's facial features lock into disbelief, shame, and unregistered emotion. He was ashamed of his feelings for her, and Alexi knew it. He knew it because he had been the same.

Instead of destruction, however, Alexi simply sighed and shook his head. Sam wasn't the one he wanted to destroy. "You were supposed to be at the rendezvous point, my dear, and you weren't there… We were going to escape… The three of us, you remember, yes?" His eyes filled with sharp, vengeful, and devastating tears. "You weren't there because of _him_. Because of the _American_." His words were wrathful and full of an age-old anger. No, he didn't want to destroy Sam, he wanted to destroy _him_.

And at the mention of him, she felt the world around her and Alexi shift away. This had nothing to do with Sam or Steve's ex-girlfriend or the Red Room or anything else. It had to do with her and Alexi and the only other man she could ever _truly_ love. "You knew as soon as I met him, there wasn't a choice, anymore, Alexi." She said softly as tears welled in her eyes.

A tear slipped down Alexi's own cheek as he smiled sweetly at her. "Oh, Natalia, there is always a choice, even to those who feel they have none… And now," the girl from earlier, Yelena, appeared and dragged with her an oversized ragdoll, "you will make one more choice for me."

Except, when Yelena came into the dim, red light, the trio realized—to their disbelief—the ragdoll was not a ragdoll, at all, but the broken, bloodied, and beaten body of Agent Clint Barton.

The man she loved, but she could never, _ever_ have.

* * *

 **A/N: HI EVERYONE :))**

Thanks so so so so so so so much for all my lovely, lovely, reviews and follows. I really, truly appreciate all of the attention this story is getting.

That being said, a special shout out to my fanfic and RL bestie, Ode to Ivy. PLEASE CHECK OUT HER WORK-SHE'S AMAZING AND YOU WILL LOVE EVERYTHING SHE WRITES JUST AS MUCH AS I DO.

I hope this chapter is not TOO long. I know there's a lot going on, but it all ties in together in a relevant way. :)

ALL OF MY LOVE, FELLOW READERS AND WRITERS :))

-Fel


	6. With Love, From Russia

"Alexi, let him go, _now_." Natasha's eyes welled with tears, her hands visibly shaking at the sight of Barton's injuries.

"No, Natalia, not— _not_ this time." He whispered as his own tears messily escaped his eyes. Her tears drew his response, as seeing her sadness, seeing her emotion, brought him to the edge. Even after all this time, even after so much violent hatred and violent love, she could still destroy, with only the tears of the tiny red-haired girl he protected from the moment he saw her. "Why would I want to hurt you like this," he gestured to Clint's form at his feet, "if it was not for the mere and simple fact," his breath hitched in his throat as his next words shakily moved off his tongue, "that I loved you more than _anything_?" He screamed at her. His voice shattered over the word 'anything,' causing the very air around them to vibrate.

Natasha swallowed hard and tried not to look down at Clint, but she did, because even while his face was bludgeoned with raw flesh hanging in places it shouldn't have, she knew—she knew deep within herself, his was the face that moved her to change. He tore open her eyes, despite her kicking and screaming, to the world and all of its _true_ and _real_ beauty. He had ignored her threats, ignored her venom, and instead, chose to offer her a choice: join SHIELD and _grow_ or rot in prison.

He made her move forward. He made her struggle beneath the weight of all those bodies. He made her remember every name, write them all down three times, and then burn the pages. He made her drown in the depths of all that blood, choking on it and gasping, with all her strength, not to sink beneath the surface. He made her heart break a thousand times, shatter in eight different ways, and forced her stand up on her own two feet.

She remembered when he took her to a mountain, not long after her training at SHIELD began, and told her to climb it. _I'm not climbing that. I hate to break this to ya',_ Nat — utilizing the new nickname he had coined, to her distaste — _but we're not going anywhere, until you do._ They had stared each other down, until Natasha — realizing he wasn't joking — turned on her heel and made her way towards the base of the massive rock formation. She cursed in every language she knew, she sweated profusely, and the higher she got, the harder it was to breathe. She was choking on the thin air, gasping for breath, soaking because of a torrential downpour that had started midway through, and all because Clint _fucking_ Barton thought he had any right to change her. That is, until she reached the precipice.

An entire world spanned beneath her feet. The sun was bursting through the thick rainclouds, even while the rain was still pouring from the sky, and the air was full of the clean and refreshing taste of new life. The forest beneath her seemed to stretch to the edges of the Earth and all the world seemed open to her. All of its pure, raw, and drenched beauty was _hers_ to shape, to mold, and to _see_ —to see all the world with _her own eyes,_ and not the ones she had been given. There was no red-tinted lens over her irises, this time, there was no 'Iron Curtain' that both hid and separated her, and, as she breathed in that intoxicating, sweet air of contrition and life, she knew she was _finally_ free.

True freedom over ourselves, over who _we_ are, and what we _become_ —that starts with pain, with a violent struggle to burst through dried up, infertile ground, to climb up a fucking mountain, and Clint had known that all along.

 _How was the climb?_ He asked her on the way back to the base camp they were stationed at.

 _It sucked, but I'm still standing._

 _Good. That means it worked._

"We lived in a delusion, Alexi—a _delusion_ , do you understand me?" She asked him with a sharp rise of tone in her voice. "How could we have expected to survive in the _real_ world?" She knew it was a kick in the balls, she knew it was a figurative blow to his face, but she also knew, it was the truth.

All they had ever known—all they were trained for—were _lies_. Reality was outside of that, it was clear and painful and sharply in focus, while their whole lives had been tied to a narrative already cut out and pasted for them. They had wanted to escape and simply move on with their lives, but Natasha knew—she _knew_ —they would have ended up right back where they started. They were creatures of chaos and destruction. And destruction and chaos craved the habitual. The only way to break that cycle was to let it consume you, until you finally learned how to control it.

Nat had had a good teacher, but her friends would have dragged her back down into the fires of Hell, back into the Red. It wasn't their fault, it was just that that was all they knew.

" _Answer me_." She screamed at him, taking a step forward. "How do you think we would have survived?!"

He stared at her with a crushed, crestfallen expression of ignorance. He didn't have an answer, and that _killed him._ Clint—he had had one—and that's what Alexi envied. "We would have been together." He whispered to her. "We would have had each other, and that would have been enough."

"No," Natasha shook her head, wiping her tears off of her cheeks, and hardening her expression as she fearlessly lifted her heavy green eyes to meet his, "it wouldn't have been a fraction of 'enough.' Because none of us, Alexi— _none_ of us had any idea what it meant to be _real_. But Barton _did_." Her eyes grew darker and narrowed with deadly focus onto his. "Snd you _hated_ that," she clenched her teeth, "because I knew, and I left… I left because _I wanted to be free_." She cried out in raw and tangible emotion.

"It wasn't that I loved him more than you—you know that I _never_ could," she spoke through her teeth as the tears she had just wiped away, poured down her face like the rejuvenating rain on that mountaintop so long ago, "it was that he was real, and he knew what it meant to be _human_." She turned to regard Steve and Sam's shocked faces, before offering a small, radiant smile reserved only for them… For her boys. "Get Barton home."

She returned her gaze back to Alexi, she sniffed hard and fixed her eyes intently on his, there was no fear on her features. In fact, she looked like this had been a moment, she knew _,_ all along, _was coming_. "And now, I'm going to go with you, you're going to let my friends go, and you're going to let them take Clint with them. Because you, _darling,"_ the Russian accent rolled off her tongue as if it had always been there, hidden from the view of others, protected behind five doors of security, and had been saved for just the right moment. "You were right, even when we don't think we have a choice, we have one."

* * *

Steve was struggling to process the scene in front of him. To Natasha's use of her Russian accent, to Clint's mangled body, to Alexi's shocked and heartbroken face at Nat's powerful words. It was all so much to handle, and yet, when she offered herself as the deal breaker—the one who would let them all off the hook, he knew he couldn't let that happen.

And luckily, Sam was thinking the same thing, because at that exact moment, their eyes met. They _knew_ what they were going to do.

* * *

Natasha gently stepped over Clint's body, before she bent down to kiss his cheek. "I'll see you again." She whispered into his ear.

She stood back up and was about to take Alexi's hand, when a shield—bursting with blue-and-white coloring—exploded across the red paneling of the room and split the couple apart, throwing Alexi back against the wall. He hit it with a loud _boom_ and groaned in pain.

"I don't think so." Cap's authorial tone broke out across the tension of the room.

But his triumph only lasted a split second, it was as if Steve's shield trigged an alarm, because seemingly, out of the walls, crawling from the floor, hanging beneath the ceiling, KGB agents appeared out of nowhere. All of them holding dangerous-looking weapons, all of them aimed at the trio before them. Nat protectively took a stand over Clint, holding a pair of glittering pistols out of her outstretched arms.

"What the hell did _you_ do, Rogers?" She hissed at him.

Steve looked at her in utter exasperation, with his jaw tightening in frustration. "What the hell did you _want_ me to do? Let them take you?"

"It was part of the plan." She snapped.

"Part of _what_ plan?" Sam retorted as his wings were suddenly engaged in full extension.

They backed into a triangle, back-to-back as the wave of black-uniformed agents got closer and closer.

There was a crazy sharp, stinging tension in the air, as each side decided who would throw the first punch. Turns out, they didn't have to wait long. A bullet hit Cap's shield, before it ricocheted pointlessly into the wall. "It's about time we got this over with." Nat snapped before she threw her leg into the side of an agent in front of her.

* * *

Steve decided fighting KGB agents was a real pain in the ass. They were good, they were precise, and they were trained to kill — not to hold back. Steve's only true advantage was his size. His massive fists slammed into every face he saw, knocking agents and assassins across the room in handfuls. He threw his shield out into the air a few times and knocked 30 or so of them off of their feet, as Sam went overhead—along with Red Wing—to serve as air support. He shot powerful beams of energy—not bullets—into the hoard of agents, incarcerating a good percentage of them. While occasionally swooping down to give a good kick in the face, but mostly he stuck to the ceiling.

They were looking good. The three of them could have handled the whole crowd, but Natasha had chosen to abandon Steve and Sam with the agents, so she, herself, could take on Alexi.

It was really only then that Steve noticed how colossal the Russian assassin was. His biceps looked like he had been injected with super solider serum, except, he hadn't. That was really just how _fucking_ massive he was. His fists collided with Natasha's, she caught his hands in sleek and elegant motions. He went to bash his fists over her head, but she dove between his legs, before coming back up to knee him in the back.

Alexi cried out, his back curving at the attack, before he spun sharply to grab her and throw her into the air. He had been aiming at the wall, but Nat curled her body to shoot for the floor. As soon as she hit her target, she rolled off the red wood and popped right back up to meet a fist that was aiming for her face.

They were dancing, Steve realized. While Sam and he were—however skillfully—coordinating punches and kicks, Natasha and Alexi were artfully, as if choregraphed, waltzing to the beat of some fatal music. Incredible. When did fighting get so damn artsy?

"Steve — watch your six!" Sam called as he shot at five agents advancing behind Steve. Cap turned sharply and threw a deliberate, powerful punch into the face of one, which hit him so hard, he flew back into the other three, and Sam eliminated the fifth.

"Thanks, man." Cap saluted Sam, but he wasn't looking at him. He gently sunk to the floor, Red Wing drifted uneasily behind him. His eyes were wide and watched something beyond Steve with glittering revelation.

Steve turned slowly, dread filled up his stomach like it came straight from a faucet, as he did. He knew what was behind him couldn't be good. And then, he knew exactly what Sam's expression had been for. There, standing with a gun to Nat's neck, while a gentle, yet threatening hand cupped her face, was Alexi Shostakov. The side of his face was bleeding where Cap's shield must have scraped past him and his eyes were wild with a knowing sense of defeat. _Defeat drives men mad, Steven—it shakes their very souls loose from their bodies… And if their damned because they lack a soul, then they don't bloody care who they kill._ Peggy's voice whispered in his ear from some lost time ago.

"Impressive." Alexi stated with a wired voice.

"Hey, man, let her go." Sam was reaching for Nat.

Steve met Natasha's eyes she was giving him a piercing expression: _Take Barton and run._ Her green eyes were digging into his, clawing into his, begging him to listen. But Steve wasn't going to leave her. He had lost too many people, he wasn't about to lose her.

"You know how this is gonna go." Cap spoke up over Alexi's shaky breathing, "You know who I am, you've seen what I do for the people I care about, so I suggest you don't make this personal." His blue-green eyes shifted into one uniform, powerful, and dark blue that was comparable to that of an ocean. An ocean that could have swallowed the entire world in its anger.

Alexi chuckled bitterly, unhinged, and broken. "You think you won, Captain?" He brought the gun away from Nat's face, and for a moment, Cap thought he was going to let her go, but to his horror, he unclicked the safety and readjusted the nose of the pistol beneath Nat's cheekbone at just the right angle so that it would take _both of them,_ if he even pulled the trigger. "Does it _feel_ like you've won?"

Nat's eyes cleared of fear as she met Steve's and gave him a resigned smile. No. No, this couldn't be it. No, he couldn't lose her, too. He had dragged Natasha back into this. He had pulled her back into this life… The life she had spent her second life running from. _You need to understand the hurt it's gonna take to bring her in…_ Sam's words echoed in his mind.

" _Don't fucking do it_." Sam screamed at him, firing his gun into the wall behind him. He had been aiming for him, but his hands were shaking too much. Steve didn't even have to look at him, to know there were tears in his voice. " _Don't you touch her!_ "

Alexi laughed in a crushed sort of way. "She's chained you to her, she's dragged you into a mess you hardly have any reckoning of… And you didn't even realize it because chains, Captain, are often lighter than we think." He adjusted the gun and just as he was about to pull the trigger, he was knocked to the floor, unconscious, and groaning in pain, by none other than the glorious Yelena Belova. She whipped her hair out of her face as she helped Nat off the floor.

"I told you he would try to kill you." She said with an unimpressed look on her face.

Natasha was breathing heavily and rubbing the spot where the gun had just been. A red mark marred her, but that was really the only sign of any kind of struggle. She wasn't even bleeding. Trust Natasha to still look like a swimsuit model after an army of trained Russian assassins had tried to kill them all. "Yelena." She remarked with an unsurprised smirk.

Yelena rolled her bright hazel eyes—liquidized gold, really, if you asked Steve. "Sorry I was late, but your boyfriend—well, the one I was in charge of—" she looked at the two other boys with a disgusted expression on her face—"was a lot heavier than expected." She gestured to Clint. A humorous disapproving look crossed her face, and if Steve hadn't just faced an entire heard of KGB agents and near witnessed his friend's brains shot out of her head, he probably would have laughed at the girl's expression, but he was a bit too shocked to do anything else besides stare. "Now, come on, you lovely American children, we don't have much time."

Steve grabbed Clint from off the floor and swung his limp body over his shoulder, adjusting him so he could run while carrying him. "She's helping us, now?" He gestured to Yelena.

Yelena moved her gaze to Steve's in a bold movement and she stared into his with unflinching authority. "Captain Rogers, yes? Don't you agree that your world and the people in it, have suffered enough? Perhaps you should simply trust that, if I wanted to kill you, I would have done so a long, long time ago." Cap frowned at that, but if Natasha seemed to trust her… Then he supposed that was enough for him. It would have to be, anyway.

He turned to Sam and Natasha who nodded at him in confirmation—they were ready to run.

And that's exactly what they did, as soon as they regrouped, Yelena led them through a secret passage way that she had opened up by kicking in a particular spot on the wall. Christ, how many doors did this place have? They went down a spiraling staircase, before exiting into a hallway. It was white, expansive, and had the aura of a hospital with how starkly clean it was. At the end of it was a group of strike agents, armed and ready. They had known they were coming.

"Just like old times?" Natasha asked Yelena, quirking an eyebrow and looking behind her at the younger girl, as they were sprinting down the hallway.

"Oh, _God_ , I was hoping you would say that." She smirked before Natasha kneeled to the floor and Yelena, who had been slightly behind her, _ran_ across Nat's back and flipped like a fucking trapeze artist, into the group of strike agents.

She soared into the middle, immediately going to work, kicking knees in and kneeing groins into next week. It was impressive. It was really impressive, and Steve wished he could have watched her all day. They could have used someone like her on the team. Because here she was, barely 5'3, but she was viciously aware of how she could use her body to do what she needed it do. She was livid, she wanted to _destroy_ everyone in sight, and that's why she was so good. It was obvious she had been supremely trained, but she _wanted_ to fight. She had ire, she had spirit.

Natasha, on the other hand—graceful, tall, and lithe—was deadly precise, and therefore, the perfect partner. They were a good team and Steve could see why they worked. As Yelena would go in to flip over an agent, Natasha would grab at her outstretched hands, so they formed a type of human slingshot over top of the agent, knocking him, and the next five, over. They kicked _ass_. Literally. And all Steve and Sam could do was stand there and watch them demolish a group of twenty full grown men, all of whom were at least 100 pounds heavier than either of them.

When it was all said and done, the two looked at each other triumphantly. "You've gotten better." Natasha smiled at her old protégé.

"Don't waste your breath, Natalia— _come_." She whipped around and kicked open the doors to a large room, filled with computers. In a rather obvious observation, Steve figured it was some kind of a control center. No one was there, it seemed. That didn't necessarily mean it was safe.

Yelena ran to the nearest computer and bent over the keyboard, typing wildly into the controls. She pulled out a USB stick and plugged it into the hard drive. While the computer booted up, she went to work placing small, circular gadgets along the wall of the room, around the computers, and under the desks. She was moving faster than all three of them (well, all four of them, if you included Clint, but he was pretty much unconscious, so he definitely was not moving), but that didn't stop Natasha from snapping demands at her in Russian. Steve studied one of the objects she had placed near him and looked at the soft, blue glowing device as a shock went through him. It was a bomb. She was making a mine field out of a room.

The computer binged to show it was ready, Nat and Yelena bent over to speak softly in Russian as the two's hands intertwined across the keys and commands as if like clockwork. They were so coordinated, so graceful, so thorough. Steve had never seen anything like it. Finally, when they pulled away, the computer made a _pop!_ as if it had self-destructed—which, due to the black monitor and smoke coming out of the screen—it appeared that's what had happened. That's when the bombs had begun to shimmer brighter than they had been before, flickering in warning red light soundlessly, fluorescently.

"We have to go, _now_." Yelena hissed and led the group through another series of doors, down another staircase—all the while, pressing more electric blue explosives on their pathway. Was she going to blow up the entire building? A national monument? He shouldn't have been surprised, when it came to a rogue Russian spy.

Finally, just as the building was about to burst into flames, the group fell in a heap onto the back lawn of the Kremlin. The building—behind them—as Steve had predicted, erupted into an enormous fire, shaking the very ground beneath their feet, but hardly effected the space they were standing on. They must have been specially made for location specific explosions—'structural voltaic explosives,' he had heard Stark mention somewhere back in what seemed like a lifetime ago.

And as they laid there, on the ground, gasping for breath from their exhilarating escape, Steve couldn't help but smile up at the sky. It was filled with brilliantly overwhelming stars—all of them shining in a spectacular array. Constellations of archers and bears and dippers all reaching down to the bend of the Earth to kiss the world beneath it. _One day closer, Peggy,_ he thought up into the sky, _one day closer to the stars…_

Natasha was on her knees watching the Kremlin—the place she had been trained, the place of _Natalia's_ birth and destruction, come to a crumbling heap of bricks and ancient history. "He didn't deserve this."

Yelena came to stand by her side. "You know the only way to survive, at times, is to destroy everything. For self-destruction is the only way to self-actualization." She clutched her old mentor's shoulder tightly, her fingers squeezing it in comfort and genuine assurance. She leaned down and kissed Natasha's cheek. "And you, my teacher, knew that from the beginning—that's why you are here." She slipped the drive into Natasha's hand that would contain the passcode and access to the database of the KGB. "To destroy everything that made you — hence, why Alexi and I must burn, _Natasha_." She spoke her name—her real name—like it was a prophecy to foretell all the great and golden comings of the future.

She turned to go, but Natasha grabbed her hand and pulled herself up to meet the other girl's eyes. She cupped Yelena's face in her hands and placed a soft, maternal kiss on her forehead. "Come with me." She said with all the meaning and depth that she could muster. "I can help you start over, I can help you find your way."

Yelena's eyes glittered like molten gold as she looked up at her mentor with adoring eyes. "Our actions have consequences. That's why you are here, standing in the ashes of the old life you once had, and I stand on the other side of it. You know I cannot simply leave, just as you know you can never return."

Natasha knew she couldn't because she knew exactly what she meant. They were two sides of the same coin. Natasha had flipped to one side, while Yelena still lay on the other side—awaiting to be drawn, to be flipped, and to finally, _change_. She bit her lip as a tear slipped down her cheek and the fires, burning in front of her, were flickering across her features like dancers wrapped in shadow. "Thank you." She whispered to her beloved friend, protégé, and partner—through everything. They embraced tightly, while the others watched as the entirety of Russia's regal state of espionage, burned to the ground, and the country called a state of emergency to the world.

* * *

Alexi awoke to the smell of harsh, chemical smoke piercing his nostrils as his head throbbed with immense, blinding pain. He tried to sit up but realized he couldn't. It was much too painful. He moaned in discomfort and grabbed onto the closest thing he could reach, pulling himself against the back of something. Based on only smell and sound, he realized he was no longer in the Kremlin, but probably somewhere close – a warehouse or a storage room around the block.

His eyes were a bit too unfocused to see anything, but he saw, before him, was the short and unmistakable outline of Yelena. He rubbed his eyes and closed them. He knew this moment would come. He reached into his pocket to clutch the crushed piece of paper he had there, that he had had there since he could remember.

"Was it to your satisfaction?" He asked her caustically, but his voice was weak and dry, and made him cough on the harsh acidic taste that came from his words.

"It was good. In fact, had I not known, I would have bought it myself. You should be happy. She'll go, knowing you loved her." She bent down to trace something in dust beneath her boots.

"She leaves thinking I am a man who couldn't find his way." He said defeated as a tear slipped down his cheek, making his vision even blurrier.

"That makes you romantic, darling." Her Russian inflection suddenly slipped away and was replaced with a clipped, yet quite unremarkable, unidentifiable accent. "You're the one she couldn't save." The woman, who by now, was obviously not Yelena, reached up and began to tear at the nanotech mask on her face. "And that alone, love, makes you desirable in _all_ her fantasies."

M16, with the mask of Yelena Belova crushed under boot, stood before him with her arms crossed and her head cocked to the side. Her sharp cheekbones looked like claws from a beast reaching for Alexi in the light of the room. "Take it from someone, who's spent too long, playing _that_ part." She unhooked a gun from her belt—a clean, shiny, and lovely M16 pistol, a gift from her friends at the actual British Intelligence agency, M16. They designed all her guns for her, knowing she needed them specially made, due to her unreasonably small hands.

"Are you going to kill me?" Alexi whispered to her, his eyes unfocused and trying to find her own, but didn't know where to look. He was pathetically lost, this boy. This Russian child who spent too long loving one woman, that he never came to a decision of who he was.

"Like I said, Director, you're the one _she_ couldn't save." She snapped the safety into place, clicking it off, and aiming it at his heart. "And therefore, you're nothing more than worthless to _me_." And then, she fired a bullet straight into the man's heart.

Alexi fell over into a misshapen heap on the floor, blood spewing out from under him, as his fingers were clutching a photo—a photo taken many years ago, perhaps in a lab or infirmary room—of a little red-haired girl, who could only smile at the future horrors that waited for her.


	7. Martyrs

**A/N: HI EVERYONE,**

SORRY FOR THE 9 DAY WAIT FOR THIS CHAPTER. Life got very busy, very quickly. :) Thanks for the reviews and the favs and the follows! It makes my whole day.

I hope the next update will be here by NEXT Wednesday, but it will definitely be by NEXT Friday, if not. :)

MUCH LOVE AND ENJOY!

\- Fel :)

P.S. I've been making a playlist in my head of songs to listen to for each chapter, (if you go back probably later this week, I'll have edited each chapter to have a song for it) and this one is a mash up between:

Him & I - G-Eazy

Born Again - Saint Motel

Bonnie and Clyde - Serge Gainsbourg

Stranglehold - Ted Nugent

Marked for Death - Emma Ruth Rundle (especially for the end, you'll see what I mean ;))

* * *

 _A Neoclassical building._

 _An infinite number of Steves._

 _A tiny girl with tiny curls._

 _Blood pouring from his chest._

 _The tiny girl screaming his name._

Steve awoke in a jolt. He had been dozing against the windowpane of the ship, as they coasted somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. In respect to Barton, he had wanted to make sure he was okay before they even tried to make sense of the information Yelena had given them. It was probably a good thing they didn't, as Steve didn't think any more drama.

Sam had disappeared to some nether reaching corner of the quinjet. He was embarrassed and ashamed, and Steve figured, in some degree, _hurt_ that Natasha hadn't spoken to him yet. But that frustrated Sam, too, because how could you be mad at someone who never asked for this, in the first place? Especially, when said 'person' just ran into their crazy ex-fiancé, found out the person they cared for the most was held hostage—without them even knowing— _and,_ if that wasn't enough, they could never return home…ever again. So, yes, Sam avoided both of them because he knew his anger was irrational, but it still was enough to keep him away deliberately.

And Nat, obviously, had her own problems. Just in the past 36 hours, she had spent 35 and a _half_ of them, by Clint's bedside as he slept. He would imagine the only times she hadn't been by his side were due to bathroom breaks. But even then—the girl could _hold_ it. It was easy to tell, there was nowhere else she would rather be. When Steve would periodically check in on Barton (and her), he would find her staring at his face in unblinking, relentless patience. It was as if she was _waiting_ for the moment his eyes would open, only to reveal that she was there—that she had come for him, that she had _saved_ him. But probably more importantly, she didn't want his first thought to be that he was _alone_.

He got up out of the captain's seat and made his way into the med room, where Natasha—as he expected—was in the same position he had left her in. Only this time she was now holding Barton's hand between hers with his fingers pressed to her lips. She barely acknowledged he had entered the room.

"How's he doing?" He asked her softly as he came to sit beside her.

At first, she didn't seem to want to respond, but eventually, she dropped his hand from her lips. Steve noticed she had refused to let go of his fingers, as she had unconsciously moved herself closer to his bedside. "The same."

He eyed Barton's face with a small but concerned frown. They had done their best to patch him up. And, in the end, it wasn't as bad as they thought. He had had a broken wrist—that probably meant no archery for the master archer anytime soon—a misaligned jaw bone (Nat had aptly cracked that back into place, which Steve was still trying to accept had _actually_ happened), a misplaced hip bone, and a long stress fracture along his right femur…

It seemed like a lot to handle for the three of them, but when you get an ex-paratrooper, an old guy (with a _bit_ of military experience), and a super assassin together, you end up with pretty good results. They had managed to sew up the cuts, bandage the ones they couldn't, and as for everything else—they knew Barton would want the scars to show off to his kids. He was like that, Steve had come to realize. Clint could take any terrible, egregious thing and make it into a joke. Some would see that as immature, but Clint just saw it as another way to live. _Soooo, anybody wanna explain to me why that guy has horns coming out of his head? How many insect guys do we have on the team, now? O.K., so, that girl can move things with her mind? Great. No, it's cool. I'm cool with that._ Because, either way, at the end of the day—on _any_ day—Clint Barton would be just fine.

But Steve wasn't Clint Barton—because he definitely wasn't fine with any of this. And as he watched Natasha, he knew her cold, expressionless mask implied she wasn't either. She saw it as a way to get him to leave, but that's what dying animals did—they hissed and screamed and lashed out at anything that came near them. They didn't want to look weak, even as their life was slipping away by the second. The bottom-line was: even if Nat thought she didn't need him here, he _would_ be there if she did. He needed her to know it was _okay—_ that what happened wasn't her fault.

But the problem was, Steve had no idea how to start this conversation. _You really have no idea how to talk to women, do you? No, Peg, I don't—thanks for the reminder._ He snapped at her in his head as he cleared his throat; why did it have to be him? Start with something simple—maybe? State the obvious? "This wasn't your fault."

Natasha chuckled bitterly. "Okay. Thanks, Rogers." She had dismissed him. She had shooed him away like a damn housefly off of a fresh-baked pie.

Ouch. Okay, maybe something _not_ that obvious.

"How could you have possibly _known_ , Natasha?"

 _How could you have possibly known…_

And suddenly, she wasn't sitting beside Steve Rogers, Natasha was standing, nearly a decade earlier, in the ruins of a Taliban base camp. The American Army, with the help of the SHIELD special forces team, had blown up the supposed 'headquarters' of the terrorist organization, but standing in the chaos of that old world, Natasha wasn't sure what they had destroyed. As ash covered her entirely, her ears were ringing, and her eyes were watering—tears were pouring down her cheeks from the mustard gas the assailants had thrown into the camp. She was blind, she was deaf, and for the first time—in a very long time—Natasha was afraid.

 _BARTON._ She was screaming wildly into the rubble, trying to reach him through her coms. She could feel her lungs bursting with pain from the amount of toxic air she consumed to yell his name—it felt like knives scraping against the muscular tissue of her lungs. But with so much pain, you would think there had to be an actual result; and the funny thing was, she couldn't hear her own screams. She dropped to her knees as darkness began to lick around the edges of her vision. _BARTONNNN_.

He was dead. What if he was dead? Crushed under a building. Demolished with the explosion. His neck cut through by an assailant.

 _And it was her fault…_

Before she could _literally_ collapse into the tragedy she had been the cause of, Clint—who was, in fact, _not_ dead—was there, grabbing her arm and diving with her into the deadly clouds of yellow gas. He ripped off his gas mask and handed it to her, shoving it against her lips. _Deep breath._ He ordered her. _Natasha,_ he spoke her newly patented name like it was a prayer, _breathe._

She did as he asked—taking a fleshy, deep, and remarkable breath—before she handed it back to him—forcing him to do the same. As soon as he did, he threw it back to her. They went on like that for the entirety of the dangerous run through the mustard-colored hurricane clouds.

The only thing was, they were getting tired. She could feel Clint's feet beginning to drag. She grabbed him around the waist and _pulled,_ pulled with all her strength, pulled with all of her will—she pulled with everything she had left. She could _see_ the outline of the SHIELD aircraft waiting for them on the other side of the gas clouds. If they could just get through this last stretch of gas and debris… She went to take another deep breath from the mask, balancing Barton in one arm and holding the mask with the other, but there must have been a stone, a pebble… It had to have been a pebble. Because if it had been her own feet, she would never have forgiven herself.

Because suddenly, without warning, she tripped, and the mask fell from her hand. The glass broke, and their only way out of there was rendered entirely ineffective in a mere second.

Clint gripped hold of her, and she knew, the moment he did, what he was going to do—and she wasn't about to let that happen. She grabbed his forearm and lifted her knee, and with one powerful shove, she kicked him straight out of the clouds and into safety. She fell to the ground, conscious for seconds, before the gas took over and nearly killed her.

Had it not been for Clint _fucking_ Barton.

She woke to him, fuming and thundering. Clint could hide his emotions, if he wanted, but most of the time, he wanted everyone to know how he felt. So, when her eyes came into focus and she saw his face—his features steely, his teeth clenched behind his lips, and his eyes locked on hers—she could only smile. No one had ever been so pissed at the possibility of her death before.

 _Well, if it ain't my lucky day—waking up to such a handsome face in the morning._ Natasha had teased, but Clint had looked ready to shoot her with one of his explosive arrows.

 _What the hell were you thinking?_ He snapped at her, not even allowing her to finish drinking down the glass of water she had been offered.

 _What a second ago? Nothing. I was sleeping, silly._

 _Natasha, cut the shit—back there, in the gas._

 _Oh._ That _. Well, hon, that's what we—in the business—like to call: 'saving your life.'_ She paused for a minute to smirk at him. She didn't understand the fire and intensity in his eyes—they had both made it out, what was the big deal? _What? That doesn't get me my brownie points for the day?_

 _No, it doesn't, because what you did was_ selfish _._

Natasha could only scoff at his reasoning. _And why is that exactly?_

 _Because you were trying to be a fucking martyr._ Clint's fingers gripped the edge of the medical bed, tensed and white-knuckled. _You and every other self-sacrificing asshole, on this side of the Mississippi, tend to have this stupid idea that you don't need a 'partner.'_

Wasn't that the point? The mission? To sacrifice everything for 'the mission'? _Well, no one else is going to save the day, if I don't._

 _No—see!—_ see _, Natasha, that's it;_ this is what I'm talking about _. You think your blood is_ so _important, that you think your death would have made a difference. But all that tells me is that you_ barely _value my life, if you're willing to save mine, only to sacrifice yours._

 _That's not fair, Clint. I don't—_

 _This is Ground Zero, out here, in a war that's been going on for ten years. Ten fucking years, Natasha. You know how many people have_ died _? Your life—a single body lost in the thousands—won't make a difference, I promise. They probably won't even remember your name. But me? I'll regret losing you every waking second for the rest of my life, so unfortunately, all you and I can do—the_ only _option we have—is to stick_ together.

"I just should have known, Rogers. That's it. There's nothing more to it than that."

* * *

 _Natasha felt the sensation of bed sheets up against her naked thighs_ , she could taste the cool, after-rain moisture hanging within the air of Clint's bedroom, and her eyes—burning and breathing pieces of chipped emeralds—were drilling straight into his.

 _Barton's hands were grasping her hips_ , his fingernails were digging deep into her flesh. She felt his lips gracing themselves against her collarbone, as she curled over against him. She wanted them closer. She wanted him to become a part of her body—curled into one another like ying-and-yang.

 _Tash…_ His lips whispering her name out into the unbracing, frightened world; into a room that had no soul before he had given it one just by saying her name. _Natasha…_

"Natasha." Her eyes flew open to see Clint staring at her with startled trepidation.

A small, wry, yet exuberant smile bloomed across her face like sunshine rising above a grey horizon. "Barton." His name was knocked from her lips like a punch to the gut, and not, necessarily, in a bad way. She felt _everything_ when she looked at Clint Barton. She felt emotions that were undefinable in the terms and tongues of man, she felt things move within her chest that must have made wild horses run—so much so, that she could barely _breathe_ through all of it. She gave him a tight, but terse hug—not wanting to tire him out with her emotional breakdown.

"You wanna explain to me why my head feels worse than it did after my 21st birthday?" He croaked out with a raspy voice due to lack of use, but it seemed like that hardly made a difference to him, with his good-humored smile that came to rest on his lips.

"Alexi." She said softly. It was all he needed to know what had happened.

"That guy is _actually_ the worst." He was drugged and not entirely lucid. He sighed and tried to remember what happened as he brought a hand up to the un-bandaged side of his face. "I was in Sekovia… Fury sent me there to watch this special cleanup process from Ultron… I guess…"

"Did Fury actually tell you?" The KGB knew how to impersonate messages, they knew how to hack into federal agencies records and emails—they could have easily reached Clint through a SHIELD address, if needed.

"It was a message sent from him, I figured… Damn it. This has gotta be what Wile E. Coyote feels every time Roadrunner runs off a fucking canyon."

"Don't beat yourself up about it, Barton." She smirked at his bludgeoned face, kind of attempting to make a pun. But it felt acidic in her throat to even be joking about what had happened to him.

Clint chuckled loosely at her quip, but then winced slightly when his ribs ached. "God dammit," he gingerly touched his aching area, "Boy, if I didn't have a kink for being taken prisoner and almost beaten to death, I'd say this sucked pretty bad." He said with a smirk. "Guess I still can't party with Russians, can I?"

She swallowed hard. He was making a joke about all of this. He was doing what he always did and trying to make light of the situation, but this time—it wasn't okay. It wasn't okay because she would have left him to die, and she wouldn't have even _known_ until long after he was gone. She tried to laugh. "You know we don't have limits..." She whispered giving him a weak, half-wilted smile.

Clint, as drugged as he was, started to laugh with her. After all, it had been a long running joke between the two of them—tested and proven, too—that Clint could _not_ hold his liquor when it came to Natasha. None of them could, not even Steve. When the Avengers got 'turnt'—as his son started saying recently—Natasha and Thor were really the only ones who could hold out the longest. But the joke wasn't as funny when he realized that Natasha wasn't laughing. She was crying. Hysterically.

But Natasha thought she was holding it together pretty well—all things considered. However, her laughter, which could have passed as _maybe_ normal, turned into shocking, choking, and angry little things that rattled her chest and _cut_ her deep inside.

He regarded her with a glazed, yet very aware expression. Somewhere in the five minutes he had been conscious (if you could consider the glossy, drugged consciousness actual wakefulness), he had managed to upset her because they definitely weren't talking about alcohol anymore. Were they? "Tash?" He sleepily asked her, his tongue tripping over the 's' in her name, but he managed to summon up a tiny, but sloppy grin. "Hey…" He was reaching for her. "Hey, c'mere…" He managed to grab one of her shaking wrists and—despite having one of his own wrists broken, didn't lack the strength to pull her up onto the bed with him.

She was shaking in his arms. Actually _shaking_ , like not in the "frightened, kicked puppy" kind of way, but in a grownass-woman-convulsively shaking. This was the most shaken he had ever seen her—not to say that Natasha Romanoff was someone who was 'shaken' easily (obviously, anyone who had seen her drive an alien space ship into the side of skyscraper back in the Battle of New York, knew she wasn't). But this is what her old life did to her—it tore her in two impractical and different directions. One side of her was the beatingheart of Natasha Romanoff: the girl who cared more than she let on, and the other side of her was heart-eating 'Black Widow.' And it was a basic understanding between the two sides of herself, that the Black Widow couldn't devour Natasha's heart, not when they both needed it; not when one felt, while the other merely survived.

 _They stood on the edge of a rooftop in the middle of February. The air was ice-cold and the world beneath their feet, seemed frozen underneath the ice that that winter had blown in._

 _There was a heavy silence between the two of them, a broken and terrible solemnity that could only have been compared to that of a funeral. A funeral for someone that actually mattered, not someone you felt obligated to attend._

' _So, that's it?' He whispered to her with a look of shattering disbelief clinging to his features._

And he knew, from experience, it wasn't about him. He wasn't the one who could reach in and pull out the girl with the beating heart. He wasn't the one who could save her. He had only ever been the guy who could stand being in between the two of sides of her and manage to make sense of both.

"Tasha—" he moved her chin to meet his eyes. "I'm okay." He said to her with the same firmness as one addresses a hysterical child. His eyes were looking into hers, refusing to be moved. He leaned his forehead against hers and watched as long and rabid tears escaped from her eyes, before he brought his lips to her forehead and held them there.

' _What do you want me to say?' She hissed at him with tears overwhelmingly coming to her eyes. 'I can't give you what you want.'_

' _Who the fuck says you know what I '_ want _,' Natasha?!' He half screeched, half cried at her. He wanted her, above God and world peace and kids; above everything… This… No, this wasn't what he wanted._

"What would I have told Laura, Clint?" She gasped out in between the body-shaking sobs. "What would I have told her?" Her eyes weren't focused on his, or on anything in particular. They were looking at Laura Barton, standing in the doorway of a farmhouse, screaming into oblivion over the man she loved who would never come home.

 _She was silent for a long time. She didn't know what to say, he didn't know what to say, either._

 _She took her hand out of the pocket of her trench coat and removed the suede glove that protected her fingers against the frigid air. And there, on her fingers was a simple, yet stunning ring. Whoever had picked it out, knew her well. It was a statement with its impressive golden band that twirled and dipped and wrapped around her finger like a great water serpent, but the jewel itself—the thing that caught the eye—was wondrously small, but extremely_ rare. _It was a type of ruby, only found in certain parts of the caves of Israel, that had a genetic mutation to not be bright and ostentatiously red, but rather, permeated to a pale, antique rose coloring._

 _It fit her beautifully. And as she slid it off her finger, holding it out to him, her hand suddenly looked deprived. She felt naked without it. But she would ignore the discomfort, if only for his sake._

' _Take it, Clint.' She could only hold it out to him, before she felt the heavy and achy resistance against her chest like when you're trying to hold in a sob for too long._

 _He wouldn't take it. He wouldn't fucking let her have this victory for herself, only to feel like shit later. He wouldn't let her burn herself like this. 'Natasha, will you—'_

' _TAKE IT.' She screamed at him, throwing the ring at his face with deadly aim. It plunked against his cheek and fell to the ground with a little_ ping _._

 _He could only stare at it—a little golden glint in the icy snow beneath his feet. He bent down to pick it up, only to realize, once he was on his knees, picking up the ring that was to be the one that sealed his entire life to one woman—_ the _woman—he knew standing back up would be a sign it was over. He was stuck on his knees before her, unable to move, and could only look at her. 'Why are you doin' this?'_

 _Her bottom lip quivered and she shrugged, turning her face away from his eyes. She didn't want him to see her cry. 'Because if anyone deserves that life—the chance to be happy—outside of all this… It's you.'_

' _You're the only one that would make that kind of life worth anything, Nat.' He thundered, as a tear fell down his cheek in silent and graceful agony. The tears of Clint Barton were not shed for the meek and mortal things of the everyday. He only ever cried at the mountains of emotional disruption. He figured—his fiancé deciding it was over—could count as one of them._

' _Then I'm the one who has to do this.' She sniffed hard, wiping away the tears that were on her cheeks, before making her way over to Barton. He still kneeled before her, unable to find the strength to stand up. Her face looked like a very old, very beautiful temple that was beginning to collapse in on itself. She bent down to his level and took his face in her trembling hands, placing a gentle, tender kiss on his lips. Their breath came out in white, jerky little puffs. They were both crying, but the two of them had just become very effective at learning how to silence their emotion._

His palms came up and grasped her caving cheeks, while his fingers tucked themselves behind her ears, swallowing her face in between his two hands. "Natasha, this is _real_. I'm here, I'm alive, and none of this bullshit is your fault." His words, while quiet, shook with a powerful vibrato that got her attention. It seemed to sew up the two sides of her, collapsing them back into one another. Her eyes hung on his, tears still sitting there on the edges of her eyelashes like raindrops on grass, but she was done losing herself in 'what could have been.'

She stared at him with measures and measures of doubt; she didn't believe him. Because when she looked at him, she saw the scars and the cuts and the bandages as her own. She saw herself as the one who snapped his wrist, the one who took a fucking knife to his calf—she saw herself as the one who did it all. And he couldn't stop her from doing that. He had tried countless times to make her believe in something outside of regret, but he couldn't. Nothing could.

' _You don't have to be a martyr.' He managed to gasp out as she began to walk away._

 _She froze in her tracks and turned to look at him. 'I'm_ not _—this is the only way I know how to protect you.'_

But, for once, she didn't argue. Instead, she settled her head against his chest with her hand coming to rest over his heart. "I would probably lose it, if I ever _really_ lost you. I mean, just to be clear as to where we stand."

Clint let out a loose, easy snicker. "That's a little clingy of you, Natasha." He wrapped his arm around the back of her and leaned back against the mountain of pillows behind his head.

"You're the only person I care about." She casually shrugged her shoulders. "Of course, I have to be clingy."

* * *

 **DECEMBER 2010**

"What is it Pierce wants to know?"

Emi threw the file down in front of M16's face, gesturing to it with a nod of her chin. "Infinity Stones."

16 raised an inquisitive, dubious brow as she raised the file up to her face. Stamped across the front, in large and ostentatious red ink—as if she couldn't read—was written: TOP SECRET. Well, it must have been, if it was written in _colossal_ fucking lettering. She flipped it open and began to sort through the pieces of information inside. And however emboldened the presentation of the file was—the things inside _were_ , at least,mildly interesting. There were articles written across the span of decades. You could flip from one that was dating back to a man in 1879 and the next was another written just earlier that year. All of it was seemingly written on the idea of these theoretical 'power sources' that had the potential to shape life within the universe. Physicists, philosophers, theologians, mad men, and the sane all had opinions—all of them believed, whether divinely created or not, these 'sources' crafted how we existed within ourselves, within time and reality—how anything that had ever happened, _actually_ happened.

It seemed like a right round load of bollocks. She was about to close the file and send Emi back to Pierce with an earful for wasting her time, but she saw a glossy corner of something sticking out in the back of the folder. She frowned and stuck her fingernail underneath the thick pile of articles and opened it to a black-and-white photo of the Tesserac. Near the top of the photo was a yellowed and worn clipping from an informative briefing, a very _old_ informative briefing. The watermark behind it was the familiar mechanical eagle and emblem of the SSR. Written in scribbled, yet elegant cursive was: UNKNOWN, YET VOLATILE ENTITY, DANGEROUS, CONTAINED IN HYDROGENIC, NITROGEN-LOCKED CARBON CONTAINER AT 100 KELVIN. SUSPECTED TO BE ALTERNATIVE 'POWER SOURCE.' She had written that briefing—years ago, before any of this had even happened.

She remembered when she wrote that. Howard Stark had dropped the protective case, containing the Tesserac, on her desk, not caring a wit if she had had been doing anything else. _I think we're gonna have to move card night, Peg._ They had both gotten blitzed that night. It was the downfall of "Plan Z"—find the Tesserac and you find Steve. They had lost. They would have to move on—the both of them. How impossible it had seemed, at the time, to move on from Steve Rogers.

But that was before M16 was captured, before everything changed. And in her experience, you move on a lot quicker, when you have nothing to move on from.

She flipped to the next photo: KAMAR-TAJ, KATHMANDU, NEPAL. Kamar-Taj, as far as the photograph was concerned, was truly an architectural feat—and M16 was sure the aerial shot didn't do it justice—as it seemed to be a clash of three different cultures. She could see Hindu in the use of multiple symmetrical towers, all of which depicted geometric shapes spinning up and around, Chinese due to the extravagant stone dragon-like creatures that guarded the courtyards (the Song Dynasty, if she remembered correctly, was big on its dragons), and at least a _splash_ of Buddhism—but, then again, it wasn't as if she, a 90-year-old woman who had studied a vast amount of cultures and their architectural style, languages, and ideologies— _knew_ anything.

"Mmm no." M16 closed the file and slid it back over to Emi, who had been silently waiting for her to finish.

Emi offered her one of those rare, yet amused smiles. She had probably only seen three of them in all their years together. "You and I both know that's not an option, Carter."

"I'm not going after a goose." She crossed her arms and lifted her face to meet Emi's gaze. When Emi only gave her that annoying deadpan of hers, M16 stood to her full height and walked over to her, leaning against the desk with half of her hip. "Emilie, we're too old for this sort of thing, as it is. And _anyway_ , reality, time – all that bibbity-boppety nonsense – is not what HYDRA's wants."

At that, Emi's smile was gone, without a trace, without a word, without a sound. Her despondent, technicolored eyes moved to meet 16's. "It's exactly what they want." She picked up the file from the desk and flipped it open to reveal the photograph of the Tesserac. "Or is that _not_ what HYDRA wanted?"

"This was different."

"How was that different?"

M16 let out a frustrated sigh as she settled an exasperated gaze onto the other girl. "The Tesserac was about Schmidt, and that man was bloody unhinged."

"The Tesserac was a power source – it could have been used to power weapons, engines, for Christ's sake, your fucking toaster oven, for all we know. The bottom line is: it could have been what HYDRA needed it to be. And they think they've found another one." She flipped to the next photo—the one of Kamar-Taj. "It's called the Eye of Agamotto and, if we're right, it can manipulate Time."

M16 raised an interested brow but revealed nothing across her face. "And why would HYDRA want to change anything about Time?"

"Well, for starters, we wouldn't have to hide behind SHIELD."

16 chuckled dryly, but she scarcely found it funny. "That's it? HYDRA wants to rewrite the entirety of history, just so that world domination happens the way they wanted?"

Emi was silent for a long moment. There was something she was chewing on, some harsh and terrible piece of information that would make anyone's skin crawl. She knew it. She had no doubt in her mind. "If your boyfriend would have lived, Carter, that is to say, had he landed the Valkyrie safely—HYDRA wouldn't have needed a cover."

"Are you saying that if Captain Rogers—"

"Yes. If Captain America had lived and skipped the ice bath altogether, the whole world would have been different."

"And just _why_ is that?" Her face, like a fresh block of clay, revealed nothing.

"Because HYDRA would have won."


	8. M16

"As of today, there have been no new reports about the cause of the Kremlin's destruction. Experts from all over the world in arson, engineering, radiology, terrorism, have spent the past week looking for leads, but have found nothing. The KGB reports that there are no known sources, no trace of explosives—and a gas leak, while it remains in question, is highly unlikely due to the Kremlin's newly-instilled electric grid system. And while Russia remains in a state of emergency, there is one more question both the KGB and Russia have: Where is Director Alexi Shostakov in all of this? Security footage depicts him in his office until about an hour before the explosion, but shortly thereafter, he is nowhere to be found. A body has not been found or identified and so, death cannot be confirmed. If anyone has any information about the case, missing persons, or tips—they are urged to inform the CIA at the number at the bottom of this screen."

Nat flipped off the holographic broadcast of the slightly British CNN reporter, angry with herself for the disappointment she felt in Alexi's disappearance. He may have tried to kill her, but that didn't mean she wanted him _dead_.

She paused, frowning slightly at that line of thought. Why was she like _this_? Any other person would have probably hoped the worst for Alexi after what he did, but Natasha just wanted him to be okay. If anything, holding a gun to her head only made her feel worse about leaving him in the first place. He was unhinged; diluted without purpose—and all because of her. _All because of what she did._ If you asked her, the best she could have hoped for was a threat to her partner's life.

And _yet_ , guilt is _not_ regret. She felt awful, yes, but she didn't regret leaving him (or the KGB, for that matter) for SHIELD or Clint or whatever else you wanted to call it. She looked over at her partner, the 'Hawk' himself, who had been standing beside her, as a small, goofy smile came to his lips when he saw her watching him. Their eyes met in that way they always did, fitting into each other's line of vision like they were meant to. But nothing was that simple and despite not regretting Alexi, she didn't feel too great about Clint, either. She shifted her eyes away from his, focusing on the drive Yelena had given them—and anyway, now was not the time.

Besides, she leaned over to the mainframe connection point of the ship, plugging in the KGB's database drive, they had other things to do. "Rogers," Natasha called from the front of the ship, madly typing code into the computer as the database began to boot up, "I should have this up and running in a few minutes, if you're still interested in your ex-girlfriend's track record."

Steve emerged a few minutes later with half-damp hair from a shower and the smell of—if she wasn't mistaken—a particularly fruity scent of AXE deodorant. Was Rogers wearing AXE now? She smirked to herself as she bent over the keys.

"So, it might just be me, but does anyone else smell like," the speaker took a moment to sniff the air with clear exaggerated emphasis, "pina coladas? Or is that like—" another sniff— "pineapple?" So, Sam had decided to make an appearance. He had spent the past six days "working on AV center stuff," according to Steve, but Natasha didn't buy it. She knew he had been hiding from her. And ordinarily, she would have confronted him, after all, she wasn't one to shy away from the obvious. But, she supposed, the difference was she cared about Wilson. The people you love are always the hardest ones to admit the truth to, and she wasn't really sure what her apparent 'truth' was.

However, she appreciated him trying to make fun of Steve, and _not_ addressing the issue between the two of them. She eyed Clint—well—the _three_ of them. She'd go along with it, for now.

She offered a snicker at Sam's observation, trying to remind herself to focus on the task at hand. Clint, although, who was standing beside her—knew exactly what Sam was talking about—and burst into a bout of his characteristically overzealous laughter. "Yeah, Wilson, I think you're on to somethin'… It kind of smells like someone took a giant fruitcake shit. Kind of pineapplely, right?" He gesticulated with his hand as he squelched up his face in deliberation, as if they were _actually_ trying to figure this out.

Sam was kind of chuckling at Clint's comment, his gaze moved over to Steve's. "So, it _is_ pineapple." He nodded with affirmation, genuinely proud of himself for figuring it out. "Man, smells nice, Steve, smells real nice." Sam patted Steve on the back with a cheesy smile on his face.

Steve had begun to frown, in the meantime, as he wasn't sure if they were talking about him or if there were _actually_ pineapples on the ship. And if he had to be honest, he kind of wanted a pineapple. But then, he realized the discussion was about him and he found himself offering a half-hearted smile of amusement. "What? You don't like my deodorant?"

"No, Steve," Sam placed his hand on his shoulder, giving it a good-natured squeeze to match his smile, "I think it's perfect for you because now, you have basically told everyone, within a ten foot radius, how giant of a—what was the word Barton used?—' _fruitcake'_ you are."

Steve raised his hand in question. "What does _that_ even mean?"

The computer binged, and suddenly, no one seemed to think Steve's deodorant was that important anymore. As a large blue screen had filled the holographic frame with a single search bar hanging in the center. A cursor blinked in the middle of it as if it was an ominous heartbeat.

Natasha pulled away from the computer and walked over to the screen. "What am I putting in here, Steve?" She pulled up a keyboard and adjusted her fingers at the ready, giving Steve an expectant look.

"Uhh… I guess just 'Margaret Carter,' for now?"

Nat typed quickly into the screen as Steve's heartrate had begun to quicken. This was going to lead them to Peggy… Finally, they were going to find her.

There were five search results listed within the database for 'Margaret Carter,' but only one was an agent under the SSR. Natasha pulled that file open to reveal an overstuffed, yet ancient dossier on the agent. There she was, in translucent lovely light, the famous picture of Peggy giving the iconic half-smile, the one that said, "I know what you have planned, and it isn't going to work." Along with the picture, was all the SSR's background information on her: her home in London, her family's history (her parents killed in the war, a sister who lived in Virginia), her apparent disappearance two years after the war.

There was also black-and-white footage of Peggy included: a short clip of her busting down a door, another of her taking up her lovely Smith & Wesson 39 and shooting a target buoy down, and finally, there was one of her walking alongside, to Steve's surprise, _Bucky_. They were laughing with one another as they walked down a wooded trail, somewhere in the old German base they were stationed at during 43'. The footage was from its time, and as one would think, it wasn't great. But he could still see the joy in her features, he could still make out Bucky's dimples, and he only ever revealed those when he was really, genuinely happy about something. It made Steve want to punch a wall in frustration. His two friends, the two people he valued most, and they had had no idea as to what was coming.

"Is that her?" Sam asked as they watched the girl with the bright eyes and the biting, resilient smile.

"Yeah," he found his heart sinking at the sight, "that's her."

The quinjet was silent as if no one wanted to admit what was clear: It was all there, but it wasn't what they were looking for.

"Do you want me to try something else, Rogers?" Natasha asked as she looked over her shoulder at him.

 _They called her M16… It was the name of the gun she used…_ Bucky's words echoed in his head like a splitting, broken bell. "Try 'M16.'"

Natasha gave a nod to show she heard him and typed the three characters into the key bar. There was a moment of hesitation, a moment of icy, unbearable apprehension as the computer transfigured the search. Until, within a minute, a single file popped up at the top of the screen. Nat pulled it down and then opened it with a wide stretch of her arms.

A single video popped up from the reaches of the digital file. From the media stamp on the bottom of the screen, it seemed like the video was only from a few years ago. Steve's eyes drifted up to the middle of the screen, where there was a group of young people, and his heart suddenly skipped a beat, at the sight of the 'trainee' patch beneath the unmistakable emblem on their shoulders. These weren't random people, but _young_ SHIELD agents, who had been brought to their knees in blind-folded and bound disarray. They were speaking to each other, but their voices must have been too soft for the audio of the video to pick up on.

Steve had to admit, it was eerie. The camera angle seemed to have been taken from a hidden one, in the confines of some tree or brush, as a branch of something seemed to cover the corner of the frame. And the agents, themselves, were in the middle of some sort of meadow with dense pine trees surrounding them entirely. There wasn't a sound to be heard from anything—even if the agents had been speaking, he couldn't hear them.

And then, just as he was starting to get antsy, Steve's breath hitched in his throat. Seemingly from behind the camera, stepped Peggy. She was wearing green camo pants that hugged her waist tightly, with two thigh holsters attached to a black belt, slung through her pants. She was also wearing a black wife beater, that appeared to be drenched. In fact, now that Steve looked closer at the footage, the agents and Peggy looked like they had been caught in the middle of a storm. He focused on the mangled mess of Peggy's hair. The curl was gone. It wouldn't have been a big deal, had it not been for the fact that she didn't look human without them.

Strapped to her back was a sleek M16 A3 rifle. She swung it around her in deliberate, precise movement like she wanted them to hear the thump of the gun swinging around her body. She seemed to be speaking to the agents because they had stopped moving and were all seemingly looking at her.

And then, one started screaming. He couldn't hear it, but he could see, by the tensing of the muscles around the boy's face and mouth, that he was yelling at her. He was leaning over on his knees, trying to reach her with whatever he could, but he toppled over, face-first into the ground.

Peggy watched him struggle around on his elbows, attempting to right himself. His fellow agents were desperately trying to free themselves, trying to help him—trying to save him. Peggy ignored them and bent down to the folded-over boy, grabbing him up by a handful of his thick, blond hair. She ripped off his blindfold with a smooth, vile shift of her hand.

The boy was bearing his teeth at her, his whole face gripped in murderous hatred. He was snapping things at her, he was spitting into her face, he was trying to tear her apart. That was their training: rip into the assailant, unsettle them; surprise _them—_ all so you get the upper hand. But Peggy wasn't even reacting. Her face, although free of makeup and foundation, was a mask of terrifying indifference.

She dropped his head back into the dirt and looked directly into the camera. She knew she had an audience. With all of their eyes glued to the screen, it seemed like she could have guessed who was watching her. She turned back to the boy, her eyes slowly moved down to look at him, and then and then and then

Peggy. Peggy. PEGGY. PEGGY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING. PEGGY, STOP ITTTTT. STOP IT, PLEASE, PEGGY.

She took the rifle in her hand and swung it off of her shoulder. She struck it into the air with one hand.

PEGGGGGYYYYYYYY

 _There was a little girl in the Polish village of Malbork. She didn't speak any English. And she had watched her parents, through the cracks of a hidden cellar, die from the hands of the Nazis. When Peggy found her she_

She unclicked the magazine and shoved a load of cartridges into the magazine's well.

STOOOOPPPPPPP PEGGY STOPPPPP IT

 _Her parents had died from the Nazis, too. She had a grandmother—the little girl. A grandmother who lived in the mountains. Peggy wanted to save her so she_

She brought the rifle down to her hands and pulled back on the operating rod.

WHAT ARE YOU DOINGGGGGG

 _Peggy took her up the mountain. She found her grandmother was alive and well. Peggy thought she had saved her because she_

She released the safety.

gasping and trying to breathe through a tiny hole in the back of your esophagus asthma he had had asthma attacks it felt like he was having one now why the fuck how the hell peggy peggy what are you peggy

 _When they came back to Malbork that spring, after the winter, Peggy went back up the mountain. The cottage was abandoned. And in the bedroom, in the bedroom, in the bedroom… There was a single corpse and Peggy thought she_

She fired.

 _The little girl was a rotted, eaten away face of what was_

The boy's face was a bloody mess of flesh and brains.

Steve? Steve? Steve? Are you okay? Hey, steve, steve steve steve listen—steve are you okay?

She turned and shot another one-two-tree-four-five-six-seven times. Seven bodies. Seven holes through the brain.

She walked over to the camera and frowned into it. There were splatters of blood across her cheek bones. She grabbed the branch that was on top of the frame, moving it off of the camera. And that's when Steve realized, it wasn't a branch, it had been a _human hand_. A body. Another person she had killed. And that's when he realized, surrounding the bodies of the agents, were _more_ bodies. The meadow was surrounded, formed, lumped and congealed by _corpses._

 _The lost squadron. 40 young agents go out to Norway in April of 2009. None of them come back._

he could have saved her why didn't he save her he could save her because he was a hero who could save her why how what he could save her he knew he could save her he knew he could reach into her and save her save her SAVE HER HE HAD TO SAVE HER HE COULD FIX HER HE KNEW HE COULD JUST FIX HER IF HE COULD JUST REACH IN AND TOUCH HER FACE HE COULD SAVE HER HE COULD CHANGE EVERYTHING IF HE COULD JUST SAVVVVEEEE HER

The video ended with Peggy frowning—not morosely, not sympathetically, not wantonly—but with indifference, with irritation. As if the lives of those she had killed had been merely an inconvenience.

And it was as if that video had been a mere _trigger_ , for the explosion of videos that poured out of the digitalized file. All around them, glittering like dying stars in the darkened ship, were videos of Peggy murdering, strangling, cutting, shooting, and destroying _everything_ in her path. They ranged from old black-and-white footage from Steve's day to recently-shot footage of crystal clear, sharp imagery of her pillaging and burning the world. There was audio on some—screaming and savage crying—and others, there wasn't. Instead, those were filled with the unnatural silence and clicking of the holograms around them. Steve didn't know which one was worse.

Natasha was there, grabbing him by the shoulders, yanking his face up to meet her eyes. "Steve? Steve, look at me—" But he wasn't looking at her, he was looking at Peggy…

she was pulling a gun onto a couple in the middle of a city square _his mother had a ball of a yarn she knitted with before bed_ she was pulling a knife out of her pants and systematically stabbing it into the chest of a man against a wall _he would unwind it and pull it around their apartment trying to see how long it would stretch_ she held a man in the stranglehold of her arms her feet tucked beneath her as she hung sideways against an alleyway _the yarn slipped between his fingers when he would reach the end of it_ she stood smoking a cigarette before two parallel lines of corpses she flicked it onto the bodies a match against kerosene _a sickly golden-haired child holding the end of the string of life_ an unbinding of the human spirit

" _Steve._ " His eyes hung on Natasha's. He had been staring straight at her this whole time.

The world came sharply back into focus, slamming into the shaky and nightmare consciousness of his mind. They were on the ship. His chest was heaving, he was having a panic attack. And he was clutching onto a pipe with a grip strong enough to break iron. "….Jesus Christ…" He heaved. He tasted vomit in his mouth. He offered a single dry heave, before Clint handed him a glass of water. There were furious, shattered tears streaming down his face. "Peg…" He whispered in between uncontrolled breaths. "Peggy's… She's…"

Sam was hanging onto his shoulder. "You need to breathe, Cap— _"_

"Hello, Steven." A voice as smooth as polished wood, sweet as honey, and alive as the racing heart of a creature. It was _her_ voice.

Steve sharply turned out of his friends' grasps to see the holographic screen before them had suddenly shifted. The footage was gone except for the single-shot backdrop of the video before them. She was looking into a camera, her face half darkened by the room she must have been sitting in, while the other side of her face was lit in the dim light. He could make out the sharp diagonals of her cheekbones, trace the full outline of her lips, and the bridge of her nose looked like it, alone, could have been the subject of a Renaissance painting. Her face looked like a weapon.

"No—we're not going to watch this, we're not going to let her—" Natasha had already begun to move towards the computer, to shut her out, to shut her _down_.

" _Natasha_ —" Steve's voice, shaky and unstable, lunged across the ship as if the mere soundwaves could stop her from ending the program. "Don't you dare—don't—" he couldn't breathe, "don't you dare _cut her out_. I _need_ to see her." Tears formed in his eyes, torn and tortured tears of a 21-year-old boy who was separated from everything he had loved, who was frozen in time, who woke up and knew nothing and knew no one, a boy who thought he knew the world, a boy who believed in the power of love—tears of the super soldier who wanted, once, long ago, to save the world. "I _need_ to see her…" He whispered, still, after all this time, begging on the petition of some bygone era.

Natasha stepped back, and Steve turned back to _her_. The girl who laid in the center of it all. Peggy.

She licked her lips. They were missing her iconic red lipstick. "If you've found this, that means Alexi Shostakov is either dead (or you've managed to get the passcode out of him)." She paused and crossed her hands. She shifted her eyes to seemingly meet the viewer's—they were brown and dangerous—Steve, at one time, had figured those were the eyes of God.

"Here's the thing, darling: you're chasing after me because you think you have someone at 'the end of the line,' waiting for you. But what you'll find, if you keep running after me, as you are, is simply, and always has been, pure and utter destruction… That's it, my love, there's no star to wish upon, no higher call to answer to… All that's left is a distant song of regret, and there's nothing you can do about it." She sighed, a quick and jagged movement.

She was silent for a long time but didn't look entirely too beat up about it. She didn't look like the woman, who minutes ago, had been in countless amounts of footage, killing innocent people. "This is your only warning and, you know, based on what you've seen within this file, that I will _not_ offer you another."

And it was then, a quick shift of the eyes, a quench of her lips, that he saw the assassin, the soldier, the soulless and removed beast that lived only to take life away. The merchant of death. She had been pretending. The tender looks, the gentle words, the poeticism… She had been pretending to sway him. Now, she was offering him this look, this was the real warning, the real _threat_. _Listen to me, you stupid stinking son of a bitch, or I will destroy you._ He could hear, in his head, the voice of the monster behind her eyes; cold and merciless, efficient and calculating; a machine caught in the body of the girl who, a long time ago, had a heart.

* * *

 **MAY OF 2013 – D.C.**

" _Pierce_!" M16 angrily shouted as she burst through the door of the conference room. A group of HYDRA's upper command sat around the table, blinking in surprise at her sudden appearance. At the head of it all, still holding onto his thick copper-colored hair and boyish face, even after all these years, was Alexander Pierce.

M16 clenched her teeth and unhooked the Glock 19 from her thigh holster. "Alexander, youowe me explanation." She hissed as she brought the firearm and aimed it directly at his face.

Pierce released a heavy sigh and removed the smart, black-framed glasses from his face, pushing them up into his hair. He raised a glass of water to his lips and took a sip. He was taking his time, as if he didn't mind keeping the most powerful asset of HYDRA waiting. Of course he didn't, they were, after all, on his time. "Agent 16, you're back." He said without a single iotaof surprise.

"I am." She stated matter-of-factly, before leaning casually against one of the councilmen's chairs. The man sitting in it was obviously trying not to look nervous as the woman stood over him, holding—with a frighteningly steady hand—a powerful gun that could have split his brains apart with one slip of her fingers. "Care to explain why, my position, as I was told, has been filled?" She asked without a tremor in her gun hand.

Pierce's lips twitched into a smile for a split second, before he leaned back into his chair, gesturing with his glasses to the door. "C'mon, _Peggy_ ," he said her old name with an air that was not at all disarming, "let's take a walk. I think we could both use one, don't you think?"

16 followed him out of the room, where they began to walk along the hall, and towards the main doors of the agency's headquarters. "Start talking, Alexander, I don't have time for your _shit_."

The older man chuckled to himself at her command and looked down at his feet as they walked. But she knew it wasn't because he was afraid to meet her eyes, this man feared nothing, least of all her. "We thought you were dead, can you blame me for taking precaution?"

"How could you have thought I was dead, when I was in contact the entire time?"

"You weren't in contact for the entire time. You were gone for two years, and within that, there was a period of six months where you went dark." He said with a shrug. "And even if _I_ didn't think you were dead, we weren't sure you would be 'capable.'"

She frowned at that. A deep crease across the fine plains of her face. "Call in your man. We'll see how 'capable' he is."

Pierce smirked at her request and shook his head. "And why would I do that, _Peg_?"

"Because I'm the one who taught you everything you bloody know, Alexander." She stepped closer to him, her face mere inches from his. Her eyes bore into his and her words seemed to be filled with magic. "Or did you forget, how I'm the one who got you this position?" She slid a hand up across his chest, holding her fingers on his heart. She could feel it beating like a moth's wings beneath her touch. He was older, but she knew it still skipped like a rock over smooth water, when she was close by.

He held her gaze for a long, arduous minute. He wasn't intimidated by her, but he knew she would do what she wanted, even if he didn't give in. It was better just to stick to her demands, rather than fight, at all. Besides, 16 didn't ask for much. In fact, he couldn't remember the last time she had asked for anything…ever… He pressed the button for the squadron leader on his watch. "He'll be here shortly."

And in that short amount of time, she seemed resolved to not speak to him. This was the first time, he could recall, he had genuinely seen her angry. It was rather extraordinary to see her like this. Natural emotion that raged across her features like a coming storm on a horizon. But there was something different about her anger, as if it wasn't entirely human, not entirely of this world. Her rage looked—with her gaunt features and ravenous eyes—like it could have devoured the world. Pierce had a chilling thought, then, or perhaps an observation: she was an irascible cannibal and could have swallowed all of mankind in her anger.

When the agent appeared—the one who had filled 16's place—she didn't even give him a chance to speak. Her starving, hungry rage pulled a gun on him and shot him straight him through the forehead. People stopped in their tracks, but upon realizing it was M16 and Alexander Pierce— _well_ , they continued about their way. Assassinations in the hallways of HYDRA's HQ, were not something that surprised anyone.

"Now," she turned back to Pierce, who was no longer smiling. "Still think I'm 'incapable' of leading HYDRA's combat forces?" She cocked her head with a nasty little smirk crossing her features. Another quirk or two of her face and she would have split it in half with how sharp her smirk was.

Pierce sighed heavily. He was seemingly unsurprised with her killing of the squadron leader, but not really happy with the fact that he was unsurprised. "Carter, don't make me regret this or I will personally make your life-"

"A living hell. I know, I know, but luckily for you, love, you're not the first to make that promise." She paused for a moment to let that sink in, not that she had seemed to care that he wasn't, in fact, the first to threaten her life, before she went on to make her case: "Now, Alexander, I have an idea, and we're going to do it because it's the best one you, me, or anyone else in the entire history of HYDRA has ever had."

Pierce chuckled at her insolence—such charm in arrogance. One wouldn't think the two would go together, but they did. In fact, she taught him that, many years ago. "That's a big tree you're barkin' at, Carter, you got anything to back that up?"

"You and I swore to uphold HYDRA and its survival, my love," she reached out and straightened his tie in an ambiguously maternal way as if she had done that same action 100 times but in 100 different scenarios, and not all them in the public eye. Her eyes reached up to meet his, as a smile coiled across her features like a snake stretching itself out on a rock in the sun, "But what if we could do more for HYDRA than simply survive?"

He frowned, raising an eyebrow at her proposition. "You mean break from SHIELD?"

"SHIELD is HYDRA, Pierce, all I want to do is cut the ribbon and show the world who we really are." Her hands were still gently resting against his chest.

"You'd be asking for a revolution, and that's a fulltime job, Carter, you up for it?"

Peggy Carter met his eyes. They were the eyes of the man she had shaped and molded and formed by her own hands. She had taken this plain, yet lovely _white_ block of clay and spun him around until he was what she wanted him to be. And in doing so, she had broken him into his shoes here at HYDRA. He rose in power and rank, pay and grandiose, all because of her. He owed her, and he knew it, but he would never admit it. She offered him a smile, the same one she offered every man who challenged her. "More than willing, darling, and I think I know the exact place to start."

The man with the metal arm.

* * *

And that was it. Nothing else was in the file besides warrants for her arrest in 16 different countries, a handful of descriptions and eye-witness accounts, and a load of useless cold leads that agents had attempted to trace down over the years. All of it was impractical, all of it was senseless, and all of it seemed pointless. Because after watching her… After watching her destroy everything she would have fought for… Steve couldn't help but think that maybe…

Bucky had warned him: _she wasn't who you thought she was…_ And watching her massacre hundreds had been like watching the end of the world. Doom is imminent, the only thing we can do is decide how to face it. Was there even a point in trying to see her as something else? Steve wasn't sure. He wasn't sure about anything, anymore—not even himself.

However, excluding Steve, the team had resolved to drop Clint off at his home in Virginia (as he was eager to see his family), stay the night with the Bartons, and then fly back to Wakanda in the morning. In all reality, there was nothing else that could be done. Peggy had warned them, and as far as they all were concerned, she wasn't involved in anything too serious. She was a mass-murderer, but mass-murderers, excluding Stark's killer bot, Ultron, and Loki, were below the payroll of the Avengers. But that's probably because they didn't know her like he did. If they did, they would know why he would rather go back into the ice, then leave her behind… Especially like this.

He blinked as he realized he had been staring off into space, while the others were softly chatting over their freeze-dried dinners. But it wasn't like they were actually talking about things you actually talk about—they were talking about the weather ('yeah, Russia is cold as fuck' Sam had aptly noted), Clint's wrist ('I mean, it doesn't look like it's at a 237 degree angle anymore, so that's good, right?' Barton had optimistically asked), and Natasha's apparent curiosity as to why they called themselves the Black Widow Ops ('Black widows aren't even native to Russia—like, there's no correlation between black widow spiders and Russia. I have no idea where they got the name.'). They were avoiding actually talking about the thing they all wanted to address but didn't know how to: Steve's ex was an internationally-wanted serial killer.

Actually, now that he thought about it, both of his exes were.

He ran a hand through his hair as he picked at his sad little peas on his plate. If his friends were nice enough to not talk about the elephant in the room, he could at least _try_ and listen. He looked up at Sam, who was talking, at the moment, about why Tony Stark was, according to him, a 'Class A Dickwad.'

"Mommy issues." Natasha shrugged. "He blames himself for what happened. It's a part of life—you blame yourself for the tragedies." She cocked her head and fixed Sam with a look that said more than she would have liked. They still hadn't addressed the whole Alexi-Called-You-Out-In-Front-Of-Everyone-On-Being-Madly-In-Love-With-Me thing, and Steve could only assume that was going as great as it sounded.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Of course, you would say that."

"Why? Was that predicted?" Nat smirked in half-annoyance, half-amusement.

"Yeah, it was, because it's always gotta be the mom, right? Come on, Nat, get real. It's not always about your mom's saggy tits. Didn't he have a fucked relationship with his dad, too?"

"He just had a rough life." Barton said without hesitation, shrugging as he cut into his artificial steak. "He's handed the 'keys to the kingdom,' but then doesn't have anyone to share it with. I mean, guys, that sounds pretty terrible in itself."

Steve couldn't think about Tony right now. Another fucking person for him to feel guilty about. He couldn't deal with it.

"Didn't he have a sister?" Sam asked as he leaned back into the seat.

"Maria miscarriaged before Tony." Natasha noted with a half-sympathetic look on her face for their old friend… Well, if he was still their friend.

"Ugh. No wonder the guy thinks he's a ray of sunshine straight out of God's ass. He was a miracle baby."

 _A sister, but that's about it…_ A sister. She had a sister. _She had a sister._ Steve suddenly stood up, causing everyone to quiet down around him. All eyes turned to their Captain.

"What's up, Cap?" Sam asked with a raise of his brow.

Steve met Natasha's eyes with a desperate look lingering there. "Can we look at Peggy's file—one more time?"

* * *

"The sister was only about ten when Peggy went missing…" Natasha read off the screen of the SSR's files. "She's still alive. Lives in London, but her _daughter_ , her youngest daughter—she had five, Christ Almighty—lives in D.C. Senator Sharon Carter—she's pretty outspoken, now that I think about it." She turned to look at Steve. "Any of that helpful?"

"She has a niece…who's a senator?"

"Yeah, that's what it says."

"Do you mind if we…?"

"If we pay her a little visit?" Natasha smirked at that. "Not at all, Rogers, not at all."

* * *

 **A/N:**

playlist for this chapter:

1\. (if my book was a movie lololol) Passages - Ninja Tracks is the Peggy Carter "is the destroyer" theme :)

2\. The Devil Inside - the London Grammar cover of INXS song

3\. Run to You - Bryan Adams

4\. Impulse - Ninja Tracks

THANKS FOR READING! REMEMBER TO FAV, FOLLOW, AND REVIEW :))))))))))))

All of my love,

Fel


	9. Regret

**A/N: HI EVERYONE,**

Thanks so much for, once again, all the reviews and favorites and follows-it means a lot. :)

Playlist for this chapter: 1. I and Love and You - Avett Brothers, 2. Wild Horses - the Rolling Stones, 3. Destroyer - Saint Motel 4. To Dust - Helen Jane Long, 5. When You Were Born - Rob Simonsen (off of the Gifted Soundtrack-YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO ALL OF IT BECAUSE IT'S AMAZING), 6. Even For You - Alan Silvestri (off of the Infinity War Soundtrack :))

THANKS SO MUCH AND MY LOVE TO ALL. - Fel :)

* * *

When they landed on Barton's farm, it was right before dawn.

As the door of the quinjet opened down, the ramp lowering into the soft, fertile soil of the corn field, it looked like the warm, yellow-painted farmhouse—with its closed curtains and darkened windows—was sleeping peacefully, as the inhabitants inside. Clint, with his bandaged wrist, gimpy leg, and bruised face—couldn't have been smiling wider as when he saw the familiar house come into view. Beforehand, he had insisted on picking up a gallon of milk from a Walmart, 30 minutes or so away from his house, claiming "his kids would need milk for their cereal before school." That was a sight—Clint Barton, AKA the Hawkeye, alongside a woman who looked strikingly like the Black Widow, walking around a Walmart at 3 a.m. But considering it _was_ Walmart at 3 a.m., most people didn't question it, as they had seen weirder things happen.

Whatever the case, Barton wasn't the only one of the group that felt better upon seeing the cozy Barton farmhouse. Because while morale was low, they knew a goodnight's sleep (well— _day_ 's sleep—as it was the start of the day) was in the works, as well as a real, homecooked meal (as opposed to the freeze-dried stuff they had been living off of for weeks). They needed nourishment and luckily for them, the guy who could glue the Avengers together, was the one who had plenty of that.

And as they made their way down the ramp, Natasha—never leaving Clint's side—Steve and Sam following a short distance behind, the screen door of the farmhouse slammed shut. Suddenly, a dark-haired woman came racing into view. Clint abruptly let go of Natasha's hand as a wild laugh ripped from his chest, pouring into the world like bubbled joy. He opened his arms wide and the woman raced into them, knocking them down to the ground in a pile of flesh, love, tears, and laughter.

" _Clinton Francis Barton_." Laura Barton cried into his neck, clinging to him. "Where have you _been_?" She sobbed into his ear.

"Hi, honey, I went to the store to get some milk… Was I gone a while?" Clint was chuckling softly, a few tears escaped his own eyes as he cupped his wife's face in one hand and held up the gallon of milk triumphantly with the other. Laura doubled over against him in bright and virtuous laughter, the kind that could have pushed away centuries of darkness and healed the gap between time and space. And they sat there, man and wife, in the middle of a field, laughing and crying, gushing over endearments and misgivings and apologies and all the other things that had been left unsaid.

Natasha, standing there with a half-there, half-somewhere-else kind of smile on her face, watched the reunion, while Steve and Sam came to stand on either side of her.

"Well, that's nice." Sam remarked with a small frown.

"It's really nice." Steve managed.

"The nicest." Natasha finished, before they all sighed, seemingly at the same time, and followed Laura and Clint inside.

* * *

 _A Neoclassical building with an infinite number of Steves._

 _A tiny girl with tiny curls._

 _Gushing blood from his chest._

" _STEEEVVVEEE"_

" _This is my choice, doll—this is my choice…"_

Steve awoke in a cold sweat. The sheets were twisted around his body, his shirt was drenched and sticking to his abdomen like he had been caught in a torrential downpour, and even so, he was pretty sure he needed to take another shower. He sat up and ran a hand through his damp, sweaty hair, trying to calm his racing heart. He felt like he had run two marathons in the course of a day. And even though—judging by the night sky that was shimmering in through his window—he had slept for the better course of a day, he still felt _exhausted_. He felt like someone had been pulling at his brain, picking into it with a pickaxe, and then filling it in with heavy concrete. He felt 'there,' but not really 'there,' at all.

Maybe, he was just tired.

That had to be it, right?

 _We can put the couch cushions on the floor like we used to when we were kids… It'll be just like old times._ A warm, golden-edged memory crept from the back of his mind of 17 year-old Bucky smirking at Steve as he tried to settle down on the sofa cushions. They were on the floor of the Barnes' living room, getting ready to go to bed, although Steve was kind of struggling. _How's that goin' for ya, Stevie?_ 16-year-old Steve, practically out of breath from simply pushing around the thick cushions, sat up from his makeshift bed and fixed Bucky with a look: _I could clock you, Buck, and you wouldn't even see me comin'._ Bucky had just burst out into laughter, not the kind that was made in an attempt to be provocative, but the kind that spoke of a softness within him, a softness entertained, by the loving, irreversible fact that Steve was born with the spirit of a lion, and the body of a 97-year-old man. Even then, he had known Steve better than Steve had known himself.

He missed Bucky.

He missed him a lot.

He missed his warmth, his smile, and the gradual light that was coming back into his eyes… He wished he was with him. If Bucky had been there, maybe he could have felt _better_ about Peggy. That was one person, despite all the bullshit, despite the lies he made to himself, despite the heartbreak in seeing her like this, despite it all—that he could go home to. That _home would always be…_

But he knew he couldn't. Not without Peggy.

This is why loving people sucked. Because if you choose to love someone, that means forking over the _joy_ , in loving them, didn't it? To sacrifice the pleasure of _being in love,_ just to do what you felt you owed them? Yeah, that's hard. Maybe that's why heroes stick to the 'higher calling' bullshit. It's a lot easier to grasp, than trying to swallow down the actual paradox of loving someone. Because to love with everything, means you have to be willing to flip the coin, at any moment, on any day, and sacrifice _everything_.

And to try and understand that; the clear, but undefined limits of how we, as 'humans'—if you could call _him_ that— _love_ with our bodies, with our minds… The hours and minutes and years and seconds we spend counting down until _that day_ , the hours and minutes and years and seconds we spend waiting for someone to tell us that they 'love us.' Love makes the world go round, but does it? _Does it really?_ It blows up cities, towns, nations, empires… Love is a force of destruction when shoved into the hands of those that don't understand it.

"AllInTheNameOfLove" – Noble. Honest. Honorable. LOVE.

What did that even mean?

And was it even _worth_ it?

He thought of Peggy murdering all those people, destroying the lives of those around her, burning her very soul black.

He thought of Bucky, catching his shield on a Brooklyn rooftop, three years ago. His eyes, dark and expressionless, meeting his with the cold and icy exterior of a creature frozen in the ice.

He thought of Bucky— _Jesus Christ, Stevie?!—_ tears welling in his eyes at the sight of his longtime best friend. He thought of kissing him, he thought of his eyes when he saw Steve… Eyes that could have lit up the length of the Great Wall of China and back.

He thought of Peggy giving him a smile that spoke of greatness, stars, and all the undefinable things of the heart.

He thought of her _standing_ _on the edge of a cliff, the stormy English channel beneath her, the waves slamming against the bluffs, her back was to him, and she was wearing a dress—like the kind all the ladies back in the day used to wear—with the hem of it blowing crazy in the wind and her hair flying out behind her in reckless, fleckless curls that had given up on trying to stay put around her shoulders and he thought of her turning to face him with a soft smile beginning to pull at the corners of her lips at the sight of him before she opened her arms spread-eagle and fell off the side of the cliff and into the waters below and he could only watch as she disappeared beneath the waves_

* * *

Natasha sat on the porch of the Barton Farmhouse, a glass of whiskey in her hand, and an entire world set on her expression. A type of transgressive or transcendental (depending on how you looked at it) mimesis of the Agony in the Garden, as she seemed to be gazing up at the stars, asking for something from the great beyond of heaven and the orient. Her face was lifted up at a full tilt, while the vast, fertile, and perpetual sky opened up to her, expanding before her in all directions, threatening both to swallow and to regurgitate all of the universe's secrets on to her.

But no vast secret of the universe could seem to quiet her mind. She had tried sleeping, she had tried a shower, she had even dyed and cut her hair—blond, in a type of tribute to Yelena. And though the bed was comfortable, the shower was refreshing, and the new hairstyle was interesting, every wall of the house was pinned in Lila's artwork. Lila, Clint's adorable six-year-old, had even peeked her head in a few times to "check on Auntie Nat."

And most of the time, Natasha would love nothing more than to spend all the time in the world with that little girl, with all of Barton's kids, but this time, she just felt crowded. She felt like she was corralled into this, against her will. She had been fine with Barton being with Laura, with having kids—with _all_ of it. She didn't understand why this time was any different.

But Natasha only wanted some peace, peace away from the suffocating nature of the house. So, she escaped to the stars, drinking the whiskey (the "good stuff"), Clint reserved only for her, in the top shelf of their kitchen, and listening to the sounds of life around her.

That is, till she heard the door slam behind her, and there—to both her relief and horror—was Sam Wilson.

He was holding a bag of brightass green weed in one hand, and a stack of rolling sheets in the other. Natasha raised a brow at him, but could feel her lips beginning to curl across her face in amusement. "I didn't know you were into horticulture." She teased with a chuckle escaping her, as much as she would have liked to keep it all very bottled up.

Sam snorted in amusement and rolled his eyes, taking a seat beside her as he went to work, rolling up two joints. "Yeah, just call me Johnny Fucking Appleseed with my goddamn green thumb."

"I don't think Johnny Appleseed is the reference you're lookin' for, Sammyboy." She said with a bubbled laugh on the end of her sentence.

"Shut the hell up." He handed her one of the rolled pieces and brought up a lighter to his, before tossing it over to her. Natasha finished her whiskey and lit hers fairly easily. It was slightly entertaining that they were smoking, while Steve "I Wipe My Ass With Moist Towelettes" Rogers was right upstairs. If he knew, they probably would have been sent off to their rooms without dinner. Good thing he didn't, then.

It was a good blend. Strong, but not enough to make you feel incredibly out of touch with reality. It just faded the overwhelming pressure of _being alive_ for twenty minutes, and that's honestly, what Natasha needed. She took a healthy breath in, feeling the flavored smoke roll over her tongue, before she blew it out with an eased sigh. She closed her eyes and plopped back onto the soft porch floor, looking up at the sky. The stars were shining ridiculously bright, now, linking in color and time and beat, forming patterns that repeated and moved and sang, blurring together and undoing itself, all at once.

Sam laid down beside her, his head tucking up against hers so their ears were practically touching. "Johnny fuckin' Appleseed." He repeated as he stared up at the sky. The Milky Way was glittering on the tops of his irises like scattered pieces of silver and glitter, it was as if all of space was tucked nicely, yet supremely, within the confines of his eyes.

Natasha laughed a little harder than she should have. "He planted the apples."

"Oh, really? Johnny _Apple_ seed was into apples? _Noooo_ , I figured he planted orange trees." His chest shook beside her with a rumbling laugh. "You must think I'm so stupid." He slightly— _slightly_ —slurred his 's.' It must have been a stronger blend than she originally thought. She also knew he was only half-referring to the folk legend and referring mostly to the untouchable 'I love you, but you don't love me QUESTION MARK?' topic. He must have thought they were high enough… Maybe _he_ was, but she definitely wasn't.

And just as it was starting to turn into an okay night. "Why would I think that?" She asked as she folded her hands over her chest, turning her head to look over at him.

"You think I don't see that you got somethin' for Barton?" He smiled knowingly, raising a brow as he propped himself up on his elbow to look at her. "Look, I may be crazy about you, but I ain't never seen you crazy about someone else. So, you want to explain that?"

Natasha was quiet, probably far too long for it to be included as conversation procedure, but since they were both pretty faded, it was probably not as long as it seemed. "It's a long story."

"We got all night, Natty Light." He watched her with an intimate, clear affection in his eyes. He genuinely wanted to know what she had to say. "Start talkin'."

* * *

Bucky would have laughed at him for making all of this into such a debacle, and Peggy probably would have thought it was cute, for three seconds, before she punched him in the arm—harder than she intended, of course—for being melodramatic.

But she would have understood.

 _Love is obligation, Steven_. Peggy cocked her head with a sympathetic half-smile on her face. She watched him from across the table, more than a lifetime ago, looking at him with a knowing stare. _We do things for the people we love, not because we_ want _to, but because of feeling bloody obligated._

 _Thank you, Buck, but I can get by on my own. I know you can, but the thing is, you don't have to—'cause I'm with you_ _'_ _til the end of the line, pal._ OBLIGATION.

 _I gotta put her in the water… Peggy, this is my choice—_ OBLIGATION.

 _I'm sorry Tony, but he's my friend… So was I._ OBLIGATION.

 _YOU DON'T DESERVE IT—MY DAD MADE THAT SHIELD._ OBLIGATION.

OBLI Steve slammed his fist into the wall gation.

The entire house rumbled with the force of his blow. When he pulled away, a hole the size of his head was left in the wall. Well, that would take some explaining to Barton. He frowned at it, feeling a pang of guilt for destroying the wall. Of course, trust him to be _that_ asshole. He gets to throw a tantrum, but everybody else tiptoed around him, careful not to say the wrong thing. The worst thing about it was—he couldn't even bleed. His knuckles, bleeding and bruised, were already beginning to heal. It was as if everything about him, his body, his mind, the people in his life, didn't want him to have some attachment to the past and his mistakes.

He felt like he was trapped inside the ice—looking up through the thick, glossy coating to the other side—where Peggy and Bucky and Tony and Natasha and Sam and a plethora of other people he owed, and loved, and cared about all stood, unreachable and untouchable. He felt like he was choking. No, not choking— _suffocating._ He felt like he was suffocating on all the obligation. On all the regret.

* * *

Natasha crushed the rolled piece beneath her barefoot, barely wincing at the sharp, tingling burn along her heel. She looked over at Sam, who was still laying on his back and staring up at the stars, but his face was relatively pensive.

"Why did you let him go, then?" He asked, when she had finally finished telling the saga that was her and Barton's relationship.

Natasha chuckled bitterly—a papery, ugly noise that sounded off with assurance against some unjust, intrinsic fact within herself. "There are these moments in life, when you look at someone, from the bottom of a staircase, in the basement of a house…" She trailed off, looking slightly perturbed by that piece of information, "and you know, you _just_ know, you'll be their regret." She swallowed a hard lump in the back of her throat. "The thing they just can't get past." A tear slipped down her cheek as she sniffed hard.

She was surrounded by the evidence of her argument to Barton: 'someday, somewhere down the line, you are going to want the things that I _cannot_ give you.' He had the farmhouse with the worn, but well-loved yellow shutters, the open green spaces, the farm, the kids, the wife… He had all of it. The life he had wanted, the one she had willingly given to him—the one that swallowed her up, asphyxiated her, drowned her in the smell of sweet, loving, tender 'homesweethome.'

She viciously wiped the tear away, before moving her eyes to meet his. "I knew I would be his regret, but I guess I didn't anticipate him being _mine_." She bit her lip, scolding herself as more tears ran over the rims of her eyes. "And that's fine." She said it matter-of-factly, like it _was_ fine, like it could have been God's truth. "I… I thought I could live like that, and I _did_ , at least, for a while." She brushed a piece of hair behind her ear, trying to clear her throat from getting constricted and whiny as she spoke, "But seeing him… Alexi could have killed _him_ , Sam."

Sam didn't say anything for a long time, but then he pulled himself up and sat beside her. He sighed and reached back to scratch behind his neck, before he settled himself closer to her. "But that's the thing you gotta remember: he didn't." He half-heartedly smiled at her, gently elbowing her, as if he could nudge her to memorize what he had said. "Nobody died and we all walked away."

"But we didn't. I'm _stuck_ , Wilson, and I can't seem to pull myself out of this one." She concluded, frowning in a sad, but conclusive way. She knew what her problem was, but not how to solve it.

"You're in love with him, Natasha." Sam said with a shrug, but a kind of sad smile on his face. He knew he loved a woman who loved someone else, but it's not like he could do anything about it. "That kind of thing… It doesn't usually just go 'poof.'" He emphasized the 'p,' with a wave of his hands.

* * *

How could he fix it? How could he save her? Steve had reverted to laying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, as his strong-cut face was drenched and simmering in conflicting and inconsistent emotion. He sighed and sat up, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration, in exhaustion.

"You're trying to save me, but perhaps that's where your wrong." A voice broke out in the silence of the house, and he looked up to see, casted in the moonlight, sitting on the open windowsill, shrouded in silvery light, Peggy. Beautiful, perfect, _Peggy_.

She was smiling in that mysterious sort of way, the way that spoke tombs more about the world, than any textbook Steve had ever read. "Peg?" He whispered in astonishment as he instantly stood, crossing the short distance of the bedroom, before he was standing next to her, meeting her eyes, looking into her gaze, his hands reaching for her and they began to circle around her, trying to encompass the body of the girl he loved…

But then she was gone, and all that was left was the light of the moon.

"But surely you recognize that I'm not _really_ here, my love." She said softly from behind him as he turned sharply to see her, sitting cross-legged on the bed. She was wearing a collared dress, dark and radiantly blue. She was wearing the lovely necklace of the Carter family crest pressed into gold, glinting dully in the dim, yet shimmery light of the moon.

Steve watched her with a distinct, bereft sadness on his face. She wasn't really here. But yet, here she was, sitting as she would, with all the poise and grace in the world, on his bed with a confident and bright-eyed look on her face. So, he was actually going crazy, now. "You're not?"

She smiled sympathetically at him, as if she felt some fault in the matter... Even if she wasn't real. "I suppose, to you, in some sort of way, I am."

"Man, my mind's goin' to hell, ain't it, Peg?" He sat down beside her and pressed his face into his hands. So, now he was going to do what any logical person wouldn't—engage with his illusion.

"You miss me—that's not a crime, Steven." She reached out and gently touched the back of his neck. He didn't feel anything. He wanted to feel her touch, he wanted—more than anything—to feel her fingertips against his skin. Her fingerprints leaving skin flakes, leaving traces of DNA and evidence of life against him—against his own skin.

He heaved a heavy, burdened sigh, and with a bout of courage, moved his face from his hands and looked up at her. She looked angelic. She offered him an entertained, yet tender smile, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking. "Not quite an angel, darling, but close." She chuckled and tickled underneath his chin as she would have done a lifetime ago.

"I saw you…" He tried to talk about the video from her file earlier, he tried to bring it up, but even if she was just an illusion, even if she was just a dream… She was there, listening to him, with those bright and open eyes. The ones that could have cracked apart the world. She knew what he was talking about, and she looked devastated. "I saw you kill all those people, Peggy—what…" His words were shaking with emotion, his voice quavering as if it was reaching its limit. "And I'm not sure how to fix you…or if I can…"

Her frown was sad as it painted itself across her face like an old, but achingly beautiful piece of art. "Do you really think I'm that far gone, my lovely?"

He shook his head in defeat, in empty and shattered travesty. "Just tell me what to do, Peg." His breath hitched in his throat as tears filled his eyes. "Tell me what to do. Tell me what to believe." He shook with soft, but palpable cries.

Peggy suddenly looked as heartbroken as him, her own eyes reflecting that same defeated look in his. "I'm only what you think of me, Steven, and unfortunately," when he looked over again, she was a little girl, the same one from his dreams, with the honeydew curls, and the facial features much too small for her face, "you can't help but see me as the little innocent thing you so desperately want to save."

* * *

Natasha frowned deeply at Sam's words. She _was_ in love with Barton, and there wasn't really anything she could do about it. "You love me."

Sam blinked in mild surprise, like he couldn't believe she bluntly addressed it, before shifting his eyes to meet hers. "I do, but I'm not going to throw a pity party for myself, just because you don't feel the same way. Feelings happen because _you_ feel, not because someone told you to."

Nat felt herself smile slightly at him. Good, blessed, and stable Sam Wilson—never ceasing to surprise in his capacity of kindness, even though he was the most unsurprising.

"Besides, being in love—that's nothing to be ashamed of." He half-shrugged with a small, sly smile curling across his lips. "And I'm a pretty shameless kind of guy."

* * *

The little girl, who spent most nights haunting his dreams, watched him with that unchanging, but desolate expression on her face. "You were a hero." She said softly. "And that's certainly nothing to be ashamed of, Steve."

 _Steve, we can work this out—we can—_

He could have tried to land the plane. There was a way, a possibility… He could have… He could have landed somewhere on the eastern side of— But he was a coward, wasn't he? To risk the hope—the relief of going back to Peggy, it would have been too much.

 _Peggy, this is my choice—_

"I never wanted to be a hero." He said softly. "I just wanted to do the right thing." He looked over at the little girl, trying to keep himself knotted together, but it wasn't working out too well. He was bursting at the seams and all that gooey, miraculous 'hero' bullshit was draining right out of him.

"To do right by you and Bucky."

* * *

"And besides, Tash, when it's all said and done, and we're laying in a box—six feet down under—at least you and I can say that we tried to do right by the people we loved."

Natasha's eyes filled with tears as hers shifted up to meet his and their gazes met. There was a moment, right there, in the gentle sounds of the night and her mind, slightly unfocused from her 'cross-faded' state, that she felt like she could have kissed him. But instead, she only smiled at him, at her dear friend, a tear shedding itself of her eye and escaping down her cheek like a wild mustang racing the terrain of Nevada, and she rested her head in the crook of his neck. She webbed their fingers together and gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

She had done right by Barton. And maybe—just _maybe_ —that was enough.


	10. Burn Me

**A/N: HI EVERYONE,**

playlist for this particular chapter is as follows:

1\. Sila - A Tribe Called Red

2\. Battle Royale - Apashe

3\. Destroyer - Saint Motel

4\. The Place By the Sea - Ninja Tracks

5\. **EMI'S THEME SONG** : Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin

6\. Sunshine - John Murphy

7\. Sympathy For the Devil - The Rolling Stones

THANKS SO MUCH FOR ALL YOUR LOVE AND PATIENCE FOR THIS NEXT CHAPTER.

\- Fel :)

* * *

 **JANUARY 2011**

The woman leaned over the table, her wrists handcuffed to a steel table, while Ambassador Dubois watched her with an exhausted gaze. They had been at this for 12 hours, and 16 had refused to say a word. Her hair hung in front of her face and she looked physically exhausted. The ambassador felt a pang of sympathy for the girl. While they had tried everything, it was still a terribly long process…

"There has to be a reason you broke in here." He said gently. He brought a hand up over his mouth to reveal his wedding ring that was glinting in the dim, overhead light.

When she didn't say anything, Dubois sighed heavily. "We can cut you a deal, mademoiselle, but you have to be willing to give me something." He was looking at her like she was a lost creature, a decrepit animal he could save, with just the right amount of honeyed-up words.

* * *

He had a name today _sometimes he didn't have a name_

sometimes

sometimes

sometimes

he just was

James, she had told him.

She always told him his name. if he had one, that day

and today, he had one

* * *

Emi and Barnes walked through the backdoors of the facility. They were, of course, instantly greeted by the shouts of startled agents – "hey! You can't be back here" "get out of here!" "who are you?!" – as they sprung into action, grabbing firearms, reaching for emergency buttons, and calling over their coms for backup.

A red light began blinking furiously throughout the facility, while a loud, blaring alarm began to sound. "STOP RIGHT THERE." There was screaming and authoritarian voices, but no result, as James and Emi kept walking side-by-side, stride in-sync, with their eyes straight ahead.

There was an agent, who was running towards James, he began to unhook a pistol from his thigh holster. "Stand down, sir, or I'll be authorized to shoot on sight." He came to a stop less than five feet away from the metal-armed assassin.

He was aiming at James, but it was obvious, that he was very aware of Emi's presence. The girl didn't carry a firearm. That was alarming in its own right. But James apparently hadn't heard the man because he kept walking towards him in slow and deliberate footfalls, mechanical and purposeful. He had a mission. He had a mission, and nothing was going to stop him.

"I said stand _down_!" The agent screamed and fired the gun right into Barnes' outstretched hand. Emilie could hear the _crusch_ sound of the bullet's shell impacting with the bulletproof metal of James' palm. He squeezed his fingers shut around it and his eyes, not even seeing the scene before him, drifted to the agent's face.

The agent swallowed as his eyes widened in horror at what he was seeing. How could a man stop a bullet with the mere reach of his hand? James reached out, with a volitional and mechanical-like grace, and grabbed the agent's gun in his _real_ fingers. His powerful fingers, tangling themselves around the bridge of the pistol, squashed the firearm like it was silly-putty, breaking it in front of the man's very eyes. In response, the agent tried to turn and run the other direction, but James kicked the man in the abdomen, knocking him to the ground.

He towered above him, his eyes unblinking, unflinching, unknowing, gazed into his. The man was screaming beneath the Winter Soldier's oppressive, heavy gaze—"please, I have children," "I have a wife," "I have—" but whatever else the man may have had, didn't concern Barnes as he grabbed the man's face.

* * *

 _Sometimes he had a name._

Sometimes

Sometimes he could remember

Blue eyes and blonde hair and a sickly little child

Sometimes

Sometimes

SOMETIMES HE COULD REMEMBER HIS NAME

but other times, he couldn't

* * *

And, in one, singular motion, he shoved the crushed bullet he had been holding up through the man's jaw, his metal hand drilling up through the base of his skull, before he yanked it out, and the man dropped to a bloody mess upon the floor.

Emi looked over at James with a slightly irritated expression, "Was _all_ that necessary?"

And it was then, the two of them came to be surrounded, in the middle of the opaque, dimly-lit intersection, forced to go back-to-back. Emilie cocked her head and fixed her gaze upon the group of agents surrounding them in a fish-like hoard. Her gaze, scattered and dancing with colors, all at once, bounced together into a bright and dangerous red, with her pupils glaring like specks of an eclipsed sun.

 _There's no air here._

The agents began to cough on a sudden lack of air flow. Some dropped to their knees, clutching their necks as if they could open their esophagus with the right amount of pressure.

 _You can't breathe._

A man flopped over, heaving and shaking, gasping and convulsing for air as others began to join him. They were turning blue, asphyxiating, twisting, writhing— _dying_ , from the lack of oxygen.

 _Now,_ die.

And suddenly, there was silence as the group of agents that had once surrounded them, coating them, now lay at the assassins' feet… Dead.

James stepped over the bodies, ignoring the crunch of bone as his combat boots pressed into the fingers of a corpse.

* * *

She suddenly moved her eyes up to meet his with a chilling expression crossing her features. Her face was half-covered by her messy, greasy locks, but it was enough to catch sight of the unearthly, dangerous features hidden there. She cocked her head to the side as a smile, one that slithered up from the depths of Hell, came to rest upon her lips. Suddenly, there was a loud _BOOM_ in the distance and screams began to ensue.

What the hell? He looked around the woman's snake-like smile and to the door, where he caught sight of agents and other faculty members, running past the facility door. He saw one was sprinting towards the door, he quickly got up to let the agent in, but then, there was a sound, frighteningly close to that of a gunshot, and the man's brains were suddenly pouring down his face as he dropped over. _Oh, my God…_ Dubois' eyes widened as he felt his heart rate begin to quicken in adrenaline-induced, icy terror. They were under attack.

* * *

Not a word was said between them. No, the only communication the two of them ever exchanged was a look. They knew the routine of _this_ massacre and _that_ assassination. Emi could control the perception of the mind, and James would simply rip them apart. Barnes, a rolling stone of slow, yet terrifying deliverance, Emi, an obstinate mountain. One distracted, while the other destroyed. They worked well together.

And when they came to the last corridor of the underground facility, rounding the corner, James found a woman running towards them with an assault rifle hoisted across her body. She brought it down and began madly shooting towards the two of them. But she never got a chance to make a hit, as James was suddenly there, in front of her, before she could take another shot.

He easily grabbed the gun out of her hands and threw it behind him. Bucky spoke madly in French to the woman, yanking her chin up so hard, you could hear a painful snap of muscle as he pulled. The French agent spat at him, cursing him, James' fingers tightened around her neck until she began to choke on her obscenities, unable to continue. In fact, with a gentle, little twist of his fingers, after a certain point, the woman's head popped right off her body.

Emi was about to continue, but she realized, as soon as she was about to exit the corridor, Barnes' wasn't following her. "James, _come_." She snapped in retaliation.

But James was frozen over the body of the woman. His face showed he was washed of everything; his mind, his name, and even the present. Emi went over to him and grabbed his arm, before he sharply turned, his eyes unseeing, his face blank, and _he_ didn't meet her eyes…even as the eyes looked on to meet hers. "James, calm down." She tried desperately to make him to meet her eyes. That's the only way she can get it to work—the only way she can defend herself, is if they truly, intentionally meet her eyes.

James' fingers quickly swallowed Emi's throat and her eyes locked onto his. "James, you need to stop this. You can _stop_ this."

* * *

sometimes he had a name

but other times, he didn't

stevebucky buckysteve stevebucky

* * *

Emi was gasping, choking for air, as James lifted her off the ground by her neck. She felt something flash on either side of her vision, something dark and eminent, manifesting on the sides of her…

All she had to do was look, all she had to do was turn her head, and she knew what she would see.

But she didn't want to.

Instead, in a slow, agonizing moment of clarity, the world stopped turning for a moment, the blood stopped pounding in her ears, and she found herself looking at Barnes. His face was blank and unseeing. It wasn't murderous, it wasn't violent, it wasn't angry. There was nothing _there_. To say he had known what he was doing, would be naive—he would repeat it obediently when they told him to, but that was repetition, not _action_. That's all he was doing. Parroting commands. Regurgitating everything, she had poured into him.

 _You know nothing of this life, Barnes, and you won't remember them… Not when I'm finished with you._ She had told him this when they first brought him in, a sad and terrified man, with a heart shimmering brighter than a dying star, in his eyes.

But that was the thing. No matter what she did, no matter what she tried to undo, no matter how hard she fought…

James Barnes would always know. Maybe, he wouldn't remember, but he would know that there was something, he wasn't remembering. And that's what she saw on his face, then, that's what she saw on the darkened cusps of her peripheral vision— _a man standing above her severed body, screaming over his severed mind, screaming for something he knew was missing, but couldn't be found. Screaming for the stolen parts of this life. And further beyond that, in the darkest corners, she saw_ her _, standing before a giant, with green and golden fire in her hands, and the severed universe screaming itself back to life._

Emilie breathed sharply in and closed her eyes as she felt his grip around her throat tighten to the point of humanly impossibility. He was going to tear her in half. She almost let him. Almost.

But he made the mistake of meeting her eyes. That little part of him that recognized her, that little part of him that _knew her_ , not the parts of themselves still frozen in the ice and time of the past.

 _You will release me._

* * *

Dubois turned sharply to the woman, her gaze glittering with a hellish mystique. "What is this?" He managed to ask her.

He thought of his wife, Louise. She would have been tucking their daughter into bed, right about now… And then she would call him. She would want to know how his day was. She would want to know what he ate for lunch. How the ranch dressing was on his salad. She would want to know all the microscopic things that had defined his life, until this _very_ moment.

Because he knew he wouldn't get to tell Louise about the ranch dressing on his salad. In fact, he knew, by looking into the gaze of this woman, the bringer of this chaos outside the door, that he was going to die… And this was the end of everything.

"Dubois, right?" She ripped her handcuffed wrists from the table, causing a cacophony of screeching protest as the chains detached from their proper places. She rolled her neck as if it had been stiff, before she returned her gaze back to him with a mildly interested look on her grand, expansive face. "There's going to be an election in three days, is there not?" She asked him.

There was a particularly loud scream outside, one that sounded directly outside the door. It was getting closer. He swallowed and watched her as a small tear descended down his cheek. "Y-Yes." He breathed sharply.

The woman watched him with an expression that managed to somehow say nothing… Nothing at all. "And the man who wins will be a terrible choice, won't he?" She sat down on the table she had just ripped her hands from, crossing her legs, and looking down at him with the contempt of a bloodthirsty Renaissance Queen.

"How do you know this?" He croaked, the voice of a terrified child, stuck in the body of a forty-something-year-old man.

"Because I was sent to kill the man who is going to be the emergency call-in—the _spe ultima_ , as they say." She got up off the table and walked behind the man, covering his ears up. "Now, you may want to close your eyes."

And suddenly, as if it had been on a countdown, the wall before them exploded in glorious and violent tumult. The force of the wall should have killed him, but the woman struck a hand out to protect?—no, no, she was—what was doing?—the debris suddenly hung in suspended animation, twirling peacefully past them like shooting stars from afar. Dubois felt his chest explode as he released an unhealthy, condensed gag.

She was one of _them._ The enhanced people he had only ever heard about… The stuff of Tony Stark and SHIELD. And the thing was, he didn't think she was one of the good ones.

His ears, despite being half-covered by the woman's hand, were still ringing. But he didn't have time to feel sorry for himself, as two figures began to emerge side-by-side from the smoky, crackling pile of rubbish, which had once been the wall.

Another woman—short and pixie-like, soft and tender-featured—as well as a massive man, a man with a— _could it be?_ —a metal arm…with a red Soviet-star on the shoulder. He didn't have much time to study the two figures, as the woman he had been interrogating, swung around to the front of him, obstructing his view as she met his eyes. She was towering, he realized, and not in the sense that she was tall, but in the sense that, if you asked her to reach up and knock the sun from the sky, she wouldn't waste time doing it. Her arms were corded with muscle, her chest looked like it could have taken a battering ram, and her eyes looked hungry, like all she wanted was the opportunity to slaughter every last soul alive.

"Now, Ambassador Dubois, I don't want to hurt you." She tenderly wiped a smear of blood off of his forehead, as if to prove her point. "But the thing is," she kneeled down so she was a bit beneath him, looking up at him with an apathetic expression, "I need to do my job, and you need to tell me where the ambassador is."

Dubois swallowed his fear and moved his eyes to meet hers. And all he was met by was steely, cold, and flat brown eyes that refused to move. "It's going to be a narrow victory." He explained, sniffing as a steady stream of tears began to trail from his eyes. "But Trumpkin will be impeached within months."

The woman didn't respond, she just watched him with that masked and terribly cold look upon her face.

"Parliament wanted me…to-to… _I'm_ going to be the replacement."

The woman's eyes closed, and she sighed with understanding. She set her shoulders and turned to the two people standing behind her, the other woman—the short and soft-faced pixie—threw a large assault rifle at her. He could only catch a glimpse, but he recognized the familiar cut and glide of a newly-patented M16. The woman caught it in one hand. "Then I apologize, Mr. Dubois, for being the one who has to kill you."

* * *

It was night, by the time the three of them escaped from the HQ the of GDSE, otherwise known as the central intelligence agency of France. The news would report the next day that Ambassador Dubois died from the gunshot wound of an untraceable gun, curious in its nature, as there were no fragments of the bullet lodged anywhere within him. He died by way of a 'clean shot,' as they say, straight through, with no obstacle in its way.

Exactly the kind M16 had spent a lifetime perfecting.

That night, when Barnes had been taken away to be prepped for cryo—as they froze him in between the intervals of missions—Emi and 16, for the first time in years, were allowed a moment out in Paris. As HYDRA's aircraft had—believe it or not—suffered technical difficulties and wouldn't be able to reach them, until morning. And while they were technically 'free' to wander, there were minute-trackers surgically knotted into their cardiovascular artery that, at the very sign of disturbance on the perimeter assigned to them, would immediately detonate a toxin that would instantly stop their hearts.

Not that Emi or Carter cared about any of that, but it was the only life they had.

At that point, everything was mostly closed, except for a few restaurants and cabarets, and so the two of them had decided to spend the last few hours of the night, walking the darkened streets of the ancient city. Until they finally found themselves walking alongside the dark and murky waters of the Seine. Behind them, rising up in beckoning, glittering, elaborate aberrance, was the Eiffel Tower, reaching for the cloudy sky with daring possibility. Before them, a little on their left, were the iron-gated Tuileries Gardens, quiet and black in the silent hour of the night, while further on still, the massive square edifices of the Louvre's towers rose up into the skyline, as if trying to piss on the Eiffel's attempt of a Tower.

And even though there was plenty of towering architecture around them to admire, both of them had seen it before, many times over, and nothing was ever just _new_. It had been old to them, while it was new to others, it had been old to them before it had even been built. To Emi and Carter, all the glory and constant newness of the world, at this point, was as old as the things that demanded to be looked at, as if it was their first time being gazed upon. And yet, no one looked at them… No one saw them as relics and artifacts of a lost age. That was probably for the best.

There was a silence that had settled over the two of them. Not that there was usually a lot of talking as it were, but this was a different kind of silence. A tired one. A weary one. A silence that demanded a price but couldn't find compensation.

Emi was watching the space ahead of them with a distant expression on her face. "You know, I don't remember who I was before all of this."

Carter turned to look at her friend, her eyes narrowing, as an eyebrow flew up suspiciously. "What do you mean, love?" She allowed, for a moment, a tiny flicker of her accent to appear in her tone. _Only_ when she spoke to Emilie or James.

The other woman stopped and turned to look at her, with a strange sort of look on her face. It was a look 16 had never seen on her face, a look that seemed to be _bordering_ on something. As if it was being pulled into a 'feeling,' she couldn't place, a type of sinkhole of thought that she couldn't help but get dragged into. "The people I killed—" she seemed to, for once find trouble in articulation, as if she had never had a need to _articulate_ anything before, "they thought I was cruel… And perhaps, in some respects, they're right, Carter," she frowned, while a notch in-between her brow appeared, "but the truth is, I don't remember what it was like to be anything other than _this_." She spread her hands as if referring to herself.

M16 frowned dangerously, sharp lines fixed across her features as she narrowed her eyes. "Well, what _do_ you remember, Emilie?"

"I remember, laying on a straw bed, rain dripping through a thatch roof, dropping onto my face… That's the earliest memory, I believe. I remember my name used to be Sinthea Schmidt—but I don't recall ever being called that. I don't remember my mother, I _know_ who my father was, but I don't remember him… That must be why I was initiated into HYDRA, in the first place…" She frowned, but Carter could tell there was a part of her still attempting to reach the memories that had once _known_ these things, versus the facts that her now. She never knew Schmidt had a child, but then again, Schmidt was a man who injected himself with experimental serum to be 'stronger than a god.' There was a lot she didn't know (or even understand)—or _want_ to understand—about him.

"I remember the girl I loved, but not her name…" She cocked her head and looked up at M16 with a little smile pulling at her lips, a smile that looked like it had once belonged on her face, but had been missing for a long, long time, and had come back worn and stretched at the seams. "I remember that I am old—older than is reasonable for the human life span, that I can't die, and that I am, for all intents and purposes, immortal." She was silent, then, and Carter thought that might be the end of it.

She had stepped closer to Emi. The night air was cold, the winter winds whipping past them, but neither of them had felt the temperature of the air in decades. "But I don't remember what it was like to _feel."_

"Why are you telling me this?" She asked her partner, hiding her sweet, posh Kensington accent back into her vocal cords.

The confession had made 16 suspiciously narrow in on Emilie's eyes. It made her uneasy to see her despondent partner so _nostalgic._ Nostalgia was a gift reserved for those who lived above them, in the land outside of theirs, in the land of the light. They were holes and gaps in the tissue and muscle of the universe, and empty spaces did _not_ exist outside of the dark.

"Because Barnes is going to kill me." She shrugged her shoulders in an unsympathetic matter. The old, unresponsive Emi slipping back into her face. "It makes sense, I'm the one who stuffed everything within me—into him… In order to survive, he needs to cut me out."

Carter frowned at Emi's theory, a skeptical and harsh face took hold of her expression. "Lovely theory, Freud, but the problem is, you can't die."

Emi smiled a bit at that. A mystical, misty smile that said, with all the right in the world, that she had already _seen_ the event of her death and knew it, intimately, like a friend. "Not in any rational way, no."

"Well, that's interesting." 16 acknowledged with an incredulous laugh.

" _Peggy_ , promise me, you'll burn my body." She suddenly asked with an intensity that abolished anything else in her mind. "Peggy, _please_." Emilie reached and grabbed her shoulders, her eyes glistening—not with tears, but with emotion, with feeling, with a _beginning_ …

"Burn your—? My darling, you're not making any sense." 16 was reeling at the use of that name, the use of _her_ name—the _name_ that had defined who she had been. Emi meant to reach into the empty space of her heart and pull something from it that was not rotten, that still shined and glittered in the fading sunlight of the past. M16 knew that reaching for Peggy Carter was a naïve mistake, and to appeal to the emotion of her past, well… Others had tried, but none of them had ever been Emi.

"When it's done—when _you_ think it's done. Burn whatever is left. It's the only assured way for me to truly die. Now," she grabbed her wrists, looking deep into her eyes, "promise me, Carter, _promise me._ "

16 had no choice here. "Yes, Emilie, of course… Of course, I'll do it… But how-how are you to know any of this?"

Emi looked up to the heavens, her eyes trailing the constellations, she smiled up at something above, a radiant and celestial smile that matched the twinkling heart of the sky. "Because I _felt_ something," she tipped her gaze back down to earth, back down to 16, "I remembered what it was like to _feel._ " She reached out and took her face in her hands. "And now, now that I remember being _alive_ , being _in love,_ " her words soft, encapsulatingly beautiful as the eyelashes that came to rest on her cheeks, "I get to die. I get to _die_." Her breath hitched over the word and a single, vital, and irreversible tear rolled down her cheek. "I die, saving the person I love." She pressed her forehead against M16's.

"Foolish." 16 rejected her romantic ramblings.

"A calculated risk."

Peggy Carter felt something deep within her move and something tangible and golden came into the distance, somewhere behind Emi, somewhere 70 years behind her, somewhere nestled between the two people she— _no_ —she threw her gaze out of Emi's line of vision, stopping herself from doing the unthinkable. "What are you _bloody_ talking about?"

When she looked up at her again, Emilie's eyes were shining like twin supernovas—exploding, collapsing, dancing, and imploding within the universes of her irises. Every color you could ever imagine, and even the ones you couldn't, were there, nestled between masterpiece of her eyes. "Love." She said softly as she met 16's eyes and laughed madly, hysterically, heartbreakingly, as she stated to cry, and through her runny, snotty tears, she curved her lips against hers, and they kissed.

* * *

 **WASHINGTON, D.C. – PRESENT DAY**

Steve came to the doorway of the senator's office, knocking on the side of the threshold's paneling. An older woman, most likely Senator Carter's secretary, sat inside, with her head dipped over some papers she was scanning.

The secretary looked up at the sudden sound and found herself eyeing a freakishly familiar man—had she seen him somewhere before?—was he a celebrity? Perhaps a news anchor? God forbid he was off of Fox News. Senator Carter did have a way with the gentlemen of the world… Even if she was smart about it, the men she often sought for company of the night, were not entirely… Well, 'appropriate.' Last year, she had even been caught up in a controversy over messing around with that fella off of that TV show.

"Good afternoon, ma'am, I was just wondering, if there was any way for me to arrange a meeting with Miss. Carter?" He offered a smile to her, and—oh my good gracious—that young man had a beautiful smile, even with all that facial hair.

She unhooked her glasses from her face and tried not to hide the blush she was showing. "You know, honey, she went out to lunch with some advisors. If you hurry, she's probably just finishing up her meeting. You can find her at Tony's Café, right around the corner from here."

"Tony's?" The young man frowned.

"Yes, dear—is there a problem?"

"No, I just…" There was a hesitant moment, where the boy decided to smile, instead of frown. "It's ironic, is all." Before he thanked her warmly, wished her a "very nice day," and walked out to go find Sharon.

"Now, that's a boy you don't meet every day." She made a little humph sound, before she looked back down at her paper work.


	11. Namesake

For a year and a half after the Battle of New York, Steve had lived in Washington. _Don't you want to go see the world?_ Natasha had asked him on that last day they were all together. _You owe it to yourself to see the world, Rogers._ But Steve hadn't really wanted to see the world. He didn't want to see how much had changed, or to his chagrin, how much of it had stayed the same. He didn't know what he had wanted to see. And besides, he figured, in his line of work, you got around to seein' the world pretty quickly—whether you wanted to or not.

So, he decided he would go back to D.C. with Fury and Romanoff. Throw yourself back into the feel of things, pretend that it doesn't affect you—and maybe, one day, it won't. He didn't realize that going to D.C. would lead to finding out Bucky's alias as the Winter Soldier, Fury's supposed death, and ultimately, the divisive civic-eruption of SHIELD. What an _exhausting_ experience. And that next year, when Ultron asked him: _What will you do without a war?_ He knew he didn't have much left in him. This past year, alone, had been enough to knock him off his feet. Sure, 'he could do this all day' and hold his cracked, bleeding fists up to the authoritarian bully of some abstract ideal, but it was wearing him down. He was backing out onto the ice and he didn't know how to pull himself back onto land.

Well, he should be honest here—it wasn't _that_ part of the job that exhausted him, it was the _emotional_ toll. Every day he lived in this foreign world, in this new time, in this distant era that was not where he belonged, he felt pieces of himself—what he would have done before, what he would have said, choices he would have made—begin to _fade_. He felt translucent, at times, and barely held down to anything other than promises and ideals and thoughts from another time. He was a man made out of memories and not much else.

D.C. had been where that all started. And now, standing on Constitution Avenue, across the street from Tony's Café, looking into the glossy window and staring at the image of himself staring back, he felt a wave of fatigue settle into his skin. He felt ancient. The sun beat down onto him with a merciless, vicious energy that seemed to want to absorb anything he had left. He was wearing aviator sunglasses, his leather jacket, and a t-shirt that Sam had gotten him that said: MY FRIEND GOT ME THIS T-SHIRT FROM BROOKLYN. He probably stood out. No, he _knew_ that he did, but he couldn't bring himself to care _that_ much about what happened from there on out.

He was old. He was tired. And he wanted this to be over.

Just as he was about to enter the restaurant, a lovely blonde-haired woman emerged, talking to a group of other snooty-looking people. She was wearing a striped, light-blue portfolio shirt, with expensive navy slacks tucked neatly around her waist. She looked professional, but when he saw the thigh holster attached to her hip, he figured she—like her aunt before her—was not someone you attempted to rub the wrong way. He didn't want to be wrong and assume it was her, and he probably would have remained unsure, that is, until he saw her eyes. Bright, ferocious, and victoriously brown. He would have recognized those exuberant, opal orbs anywhere. Her aunt had the same ones.

"No, Bert—that's not what we _agreed_." She snapped at one of the men in her party. "Female healthcare is out of the question." Her hand—a tool she seemed to use to slice through unnecessary pretense—waved out in front of her to hold the conversation to her liking. "We are talking women—women with HIV, women of sexual assault, trans women, women with irregular menstrual cycles who _rely_ on their birth control for any number of reasons. How can you—"

"—Carter, it's not as if you're actually—" The man, Bert, was beginning to speak, until Sharon interrupted him, that is.

"I'm not actually a woman? Is that what you're implying?" By some miraculous strength and flexibility within her facial features, her entire expression seemed to narrow disbelievingly at this man who dared tried to argue. "I don't have HIV, so I don't get to contribute to the political conversation?" She bumped her lip up in an exaggerated 'huh' matter, as if Bert was suggesting an actual point she needed to consider.

Steve couldn't help but smirk at the sight. The girl had fire. He didn't really have to imagine where that came from.

"Sharon—that is _absolutely_ not what I was—"

"No, you're doing the thing that most people do, when they're trying to _not_ say the thing they _really_ mean." She crossed her arms underneath her breasts and did a 45 degree turn so she was facing him with a dangerous expression on her face. "In other words, you don't like my bill because, for once, in the history of the G.O.P., it's a piece of legislation that doesn't deal with _dicks._ " She spat the last word with a lethal, vehement energy that meant to strike into the flesh, that meant to cut and tear, that meant to end all contention. And it worked because the sudden crassness of her statement, after being so professional, seemed to take Bert and the other members of the group a bit off guard.

Bert released an even sigh and cocked his head, watching Sharon, before an easy smile came to his features. "You haven't changed since law school." He seemed amused. A bit of a soft _-_ humored expression appeared on his features as if there was a change in him that wanted to reach back to a distant part of their lives, perhaps to a distant Sharon and a distant Bert.

Sharon rolled her eyes in exhaustion and shook her head. "I'll see you after the break, Bert." Bert shook her hand, lingering to pass words along with one of the other congressmen in her party, before they all parted ways. Some headed back towards the Senate Offices, but others headed towards expensive, luxury sedans parked in reserved parking spots that lined all the way down Constitution Ave. Sharon, on the other hand, stayed behind to talk with a couple who were seated at a table near her. And though she was only talking, it was clear that the group was separating, then. Steve knew he had to make his move.

He advanced quickly and came up behind her. "Senator Carter?" He asked quietly, hoping not to spook her amidst her conversation with the couple.

The young woman's back tensed with a visible rigidity, as if she had been expecting someone to approach her the moment she turned her back. She turned slowly, her face being caught in a patch of dazzling sunlight as she squelched her eyes together to get a better look at the man before her. She analyzed him intently, maybe a little too intently.

"Roger Stevens." He flashed a fake press badge for a fake newspaper, apparently somewhere in Ohio, of all places. Why Natasha had chosen Ohio as the promised spot, he had no idea.

Sharon's eyes traced over him with an increasingly tightened, concerned expression crossing her features, but even so, a small, yet genuine smile was beginning to form over her lips. "Ah, Mr. Stevens, what can I do for you?"

What could she do for him? He ran over Natasha's plan in his head. He was never the best liar, but if he genuinely meant what he said… Maybe, this could work. "Well, with your campaign coming up for the Presidential election in November, our readers are finding themselves in an odd place."

Sharon chortled, that genuinely interested smile remaining on her face. "And why is that?"

"Well, they like your ideas, your platform—they like _you_ , but they're not sure if they can trust you or not. And given who your family is and it's—erm—" he paused, trying to find the right words. "Well, _remarkable_ history, I think writing a sort of 'biographical opinion piece' on your family could really win them over."

Sharon found herself chuckling at his statement. "You want to know about the Carters." She acknowledged his words with a nod of her head.

"Yes, ma'am."

The senator was smirking wryly at his usage of 'ma'am,' staring at him with a weighted gaze. She dug into him with that smirking smug gaze, as if she could dissect him, open him up, analyze everything inside, and then piece it all back together again. And while she was smiling, there was a rabid essence to her stare, as if her very DNA was tied into something ferociously defensive. She was a Carter, after all. She eventually gave a sigh and inclined her head to show she would _entertain_ the possibility of an interview. "Walk with me, Mr. Stevens, my lunch hour ends in twenty minutes. If we cut across by George's Monument, we can take an extra ten minutes on the way to my office." She was still holding his eyes with that fierce, primal energy, even as she had relented.

It took him a minute to realize that Sharon was referring to the Washington Monument on the edge of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, by giving it an informal nickname 'George.' He smiled a bit at the girl's quirkiness. She was like Peggy, sure, but that vivacity he felt vibrating off of her in thick cords—that was hers all alone. He began to follow after her, as she was already moving, easily striding to her side as they walked towards that massive obelisk, before them, the one that stabbed the cloudless sky with unflinching, careless authority. The last time he had been by this part of the National Mall, he had been racing Sam along the glimmering, reflecting pool that commemorated Honest Abe. It didn't feel like three years should be an inordinate amount of time (especially given how old he was), but—Christ—how long ago that _felt_ …

"Mr. Stevens, what do you want to know?" Sharon interrupted his self-pity, raising an eyebrow as she looked across the gap between them with a sharp look on her face that seemed to say: 'I absolutely _do not_ have time for your introspective bullshit.'

Steve chuckled at her expression and nodded in agreement. "Why not just start with what you _want_ to talk about." He smiled cautiously at her, earnestly—as if he didn't want to get on her bad side.

The senator was still looking at him with a dubious, yet entertained countenance. He got the impression she suspected something about him—he still hadn't removed his sunglasses, or his hat (even in the presence of a lady—Joseph Rogers would have clapped him on the back of the head)—but she seemed _impressed_ about something, as well. It was as if she didn't get the chance to pick what she wanted to talk about, often. "My family… Well, obviously, I'm not the typical purebred, high-blooded, and British lord-kind of type." She gesticulated her lack of 'Britishness' with her hands.

"Obviously." Steve agreed with a good-natured chuckle.

"You were right, Mr. Stevens, the Carters were remarkable, but everyone's always been the same, for the most part, and, in a way that's pretty sad. Take my grandfather, for instance. He was a geneticist in the first World War, was on this crazy, emblazoning path with an enzyme in goats' milk. The Royal Society, before the second World War, even claimed he was on the forefront of some kind of miracle cure to cancer."

"He was?" Steve prompted with a wild look in his eyes.

"Well, according to the stuffy-faced muckety-mucks of the 40's—yeah, they thought he was. At least, his testing on his cancer-ridden rats was working. That is, until he and my grandma died in the War." She paused, as if trying to remember all the complicated events and history of her family. "Anyway, after that, the Royal Society figured it was really _their_ discovery, and my grandfather had nothing to do with it. He was discredited, left out of the research, and when they finally released the findings, the old guy was, apparently, full of shit, as it had been nothing more than a fluke.

"My mom—same deal, right? Brilliant, Shadow Secretary for Education and Science, under Margaret Thatcher, but she was _cold._ I mean, she had me when she was 47, and everyone thought she was crazy for having a kid. She called it 'a mercy,' and _not_ for her, _for me._ " Sharon swallowed, tucking her hands into her pockets as they walked. Her eyes were wired with some undercurrent of electricity, like she wasn't upset about her mother's cruel words. "See, my mom had this philosophy: children shouldn't have parents for _too_ long. And luckily for her, that was true—she died when I was 20." Sharon smiled with a sense of acceptance, as if she had long thought about this, and had concluded that this _was_ what her mother had wanted.

"But I can't blame her." The senator turned to look at Steve, a gentle smile touching her features. "Everyone she loved died by the time she was 10. She grew up way too fast, and that's _hard_. People thought she was cruel just because she was sad." She seemed lost in thought; stuck on some distant thing that even she couldn't reach. She had said the words with a sort of distrust coating her voice. To anyone else, they probably wouldn't have noticed, but Steve wasn't 'anyone else.'

"You don't believe that she was _that_ cruel."

"It doesn't matter what I believe." She said with that savage smirk appearing across her face. "But that's what happens with Carters—we're born into greatness, we have old money, we have great minds, and we know how to think. But then we fall from grace, and after that, we don't usually have the energy to fight back."

"And you do?" Steve asked quietly, trying to keep Sharon's words from reminding him of Peggy. "Have the energy to fight back?"

Sharon slowed in her walk but didn't stop. "I think that depends on the situation." She said softly as that vivid, enraged energy seemed to leave her. She seemed stuck on his question. Sharon was campaigning for the presidential election after President Ellis' term ended in a few months, and so far, though she was the popular candidate compared to the other guy, something told Steve, perhaps she found herself feeling more like the 'purebred' Carters of her past, more often than she would have liked. "I'll do what needs to be done." She said with a sort of iron-edge in her voice. Steve knew she meant it and didn't dare question her nerve.

Still, he felt a bit guilty for breaching on an, obviously, touchy subject. Even so, he knew he had to do it again. "If that's the case, then I need to ask you somethin', ma'am, and despite how crazy it sounds, I need you to answer it."

The two of them stopped in the middle of the path—a tour group, which had been trailing behind them, realized Sharon and Steve had stopped, and began to split around them, as the guide ventured on about the construction of the Washington Monument many years ago. And while, to anyone watching, it would seem that the two of them were still locked in conversation, if you had dared to look closer, something had visibly changed besides their movement. An apprehensive, yet undeniable tension seemed to work itself between the two. And in one fluid moment, Steve removed his sunglasses and suddenly, Sharon, knew _exactly_ who she was looking at.

If Natasha had been watching, she would have scalped him. He did the exact thing she told him not to do—'don't reveal yourself to Sharon Carter, _no matter_ how tempting it is.' But Natasha wasn't here, and neither was Sam, a stupid move, on his part, perhaps, to let his team off for the day, but he figured he could handle a minute conversation with a senator. However, as he watched her face mold from upended, icy suspicion to unsurprised confirmation, he _knew_. "And what question is that, Captain Rogers?"

"Your aunt—your mom's sister—"

"—Margaret Carter." She finished for him, her expression not giving away anything.

"Did you know she was alive?"

Sharon's eyes locked on his, a tense and threatening manner seemed to have overtaken her. He was suddenly made aware, and therefore, _understood_ , why Sharon Carter did _not_ have body guards, as any member of the federal government would. She could have taken him, or at least, she had been trained to _fight_. She raised her face to meet his eyes, all the snarky amusement had been stripped from her gaze and she could only meet his, with a malevolent glimmer resting there.

"Captain, you need to be very careful about what you say here." The noise around them from the tourists and patrons began to fade as their conversation encompassed everything else. Steve noticed that even the temperature of the air on his skin, felt ten times frostier, despite the warm, balmy spring air. "You were warned." She said softly, meeting his eyes with a steady urgency, another warning in the disguise of that wriggling, dangerous tension between them. "And this road you're about to step on, it's not long, but it's deeper, than you can possibly imagine." She cocked her head and even though he wanted to look away, even though he wanted to peer away from those monstrous brown eyes of hers, the eyes that looked so much like Peggy's, he couldn't. "For the sake of the people you care about— _think_ about what you're about to do."

Steve's brow furrowed and that _look_ —that steely, impossible-to-move resolve—came across his features, his teeth gritting behind the grim line of his lips. He thought of Peggy, on that cliff before the raging English Channel, giving a smile that was winged with all the hope in the world, before she cast herself into the waves. "I have."

The senator, realizing that he had already thought through this, offered a single nod and walked the short distance to the public restroom building. In between the opposite entrances, there was a bulletin board crammed full of notices for events and talks and conferences happening in the Capital (or _had_ happened, some of them, Steve noticed were dating back from months ago). Sharon pulled a particular flier down, one that Steve had noticed populating the area quite frequently, and flipped it on its back, before she pulled out a pen and scribbled something on the back of it. She carefully put the pen back in her shirt pocket and returned to him, holding the flier at the ready.

She looked around to make sure they weren't being watched, before she shoved it into his hands. He looked down at the flier, read over it, and frowned sharply, looking up at the senator's urgent, terrified eyes. He was tempted to turn it over in front of her to read what she had written, but something told him, as he met the intensely focused eyes of Sharon Carter, he should wait until he was far, far away from her and from the public eye.

"I'm giving you twelve hours, Rogers, twelve hours to do this and get the hell out of D.C." She spoke quickly, insistently, as if each word needed to be spoken and urged with great deliberance. "After that, I'm informing the F.B.I. that the biggest criminal on their watchlist is in town. Do you understand?" She stabbed her eyes into his, glancing to his lips, to his nose, to his eyes to make sure every part of him wasn't lying as she nodded. "Afterwards, the game will change—they'll come after you with everything they got. And this city, by then, will be crawling with your fingerprints. I'll have to file a report. The whole world will know that you were _here_."

Steve nodded wordlessly.

"And whether that's enough time or not, it's all I can give you." She said softly as if some terrible existence hung over her head, something that had been hanging over her for a while. He could only guess what kind of threats Peggy had placed on her head, her own niece. "Good luck, Steve." She finished, before she abruptly turned and continued up the steps to her office, leaving Steve to the shocking revelation she had just dumped on him.

* * *

Later, in a Starbucks, not far from where Steve had walked with Sharon, Cap, Natasha, and Sam, all stared down at the flier that he had laid out in front of them. Staring back at them, from the crinkled page, was the familiar, lovely, and refined face of Pepper Potts. Steve had seen fliers all over D.C. for her much-awaited talk about her success in international business. She was one of the youngest CEOs in the global economy, it was no surprise to see her at some prestigious conference, presenting tips on her success.

But what made this particular flier alarming was what Sharon had written on the back of it. Written in fine, but scribbled cursive, were just two, incredibly puzzling words: 'the second.'

Sam scratched his head as they all stared distantly with bleak expressions. "O.K. soooo what does that mean?"

"Well, if there's a 'second,' maybe there's a first…? Of something?" Natasha frowned.

"A second of _what_?" Sam asked tiredly as he rubbed his eyes with the back of his fingers. "How long did she give you until our asses are under fire from the Feds?" He had directed his gaze to Steve.

"Twelve hours." Steve answered with a frown on his face. He was looking down at the flier with concern leaking into the creases of his forehead, the slide of his nose and the crease between his brows furrowing into the perfect 'T.' He was all hard lines and puzzlement. Why did everything have to be so damn complicated? They were being pressed on a time limit that they didn't even have all the _limits_ for.

"Should we call Tony? Maybe he would know." Natasha suggested.

" _No_." Sam and Steve both spoke sharply in response, causing a taken aback roll of the eyes from Nat.

But to some degree of luck, or perhaps, it was simply gruesome timing, the barista turned up the volume on the TV hanging in the corner of the coffee shop, as a breaking news feed interrupted the program, and suddenly, everyone in the entire shop was watching. "Breaking news in from Moscow this morning, weeks after the destruction of Moscow's royal palace and intelligence agency, the Kremlin, the body of Director Alexi Shostakov has been discovered in a warehouse nearly a mile away from the site of the explosion."

Natasha's face was doused in shocking, plummeting emotion. Her hands going to gently cup her mouth in some kind of sinking revelation. She knew this had been coming, but some part of her hoped, beyond anything, it wasn't.

The reporter continued. "And while the death of the Director is a shock to many, the particularly odd part about the Director's demise is the way in which it happened. It seems as if a bullet from an M16 A3 rifle, a single, untraceable bullet to the heart, was the weapon of choice. And near Shostakov's body, even _more_ important figures of the Kremlin's upper channels lay in dismal positions, all killed with the same weapon. It would seem that Shostakov is the _first_ in a string of gruesome killings that happened on that historical, bloody night."

Steve _knew_ the moment he heard 'first,' somehow, someway, Sharon Carter had gotten ahold of that broadcast and made sure 'first' was put into the script. The reporter said more, but by then, the three of them were no longer looking at the broadcast, they were looking down at the smiling, unassuming face of Pepper Potts—the 'second.'

" _Now_ , can we call Tony?" Natasha asked.


	12. No Reason

"This is _so_ itchy." Natasha complained as she stuck the alpha-gel mask to her face, the biometric mesh instantly beginning to morph into the facial plains of Pepper Potts' head body guard.

Steve smirked at her, adjusting the strap on the side of his boot. "I'da thought you'd be used to that by now, Romanoff."

They stood about a block away from the National Conference Center in downtown D.C. The night air, Steve couldn't help but notice, was thick with humidity, as if the rain from earlier had decided to stick around and boil them in a sticky, steamy bubble. The hot sun's rays had cooked the sidewalk long enough that a fine level of muggy fog hung right above ankle-level. It may have been March, but it felt like a night in early August; with the moist, heavy air. Back in the day, when Steve was still a kid in Brooklyn, these nights would be the hardest for him to catch his breath. His ma would have forced him to drink a hot, black cup of coffee, despite the sweltering heat, just to open up his lungs. Yet, as Steve ran a hand across his forehead, feeling the fine beads of sweat there, he knew, while he wasn't at a threat to an asthma attack, something much worse was waiting for them.

"Alright, kids, I got a visual on Pepper. East quadrant. She's comin' out of a black Mercedes." Sam spoke through their coms, as he circled overhead the Conference Center.

Natasha and Steve made eye contact. If Pepper was already here, that meant a longer amount of time she would be on her own, and that meant, more time for Peggy to get a hold of her. They had to get moving. _Now._

Natasha moved to the sleek, black motorcycle on the other side of the alleyway. Steve was sure she had "borrowed" it (illegally), but he didn't say anything, as they had more important things to focus on. He followed her, crossing his arms as he watched her shift the bike into gear. "You remember the plan?" He asked her, his blue eyes watching the way she got herself settled.

She rolled her eyes in a bit of a taxed motion, as if Steve had asked this a million times. He had. "Take Pepper to the West Exit, Sam will meet me there—he'll get her out of the radius. We stick around to do a sweep for your girl."

Satisfied, Steve nodded, stepping back from the bike to allow her room to move. "Be careful." He reminded her, as if there was any other way to be in an operation like this.

Nat smirked at Steve, giving him a sarcastic little salute. "I'll stick to the plan, Rogers, as long as you do, too." She revved the engine and gave him a flirtatious little smile, causing Steve to roll his eyes at her, before she slammed onto the gas and zipped onto the road. Steve watched her for a minute, until she turned a corner and disappeared into the night.

And he knew, that was his cue. He grabbed the compartmentalized shield and hooked it to his belt, before he began climbing up the side of the building, hefting himself gracefully onto the top of the roof. He began jogging across the concrete roofing, his footsteps light and soundless. He came to the first gap between roofs and leaped over it easily, stealing through the night like a cat within the trees. And when he couldn't leap over a roof, he hooked himself to the closest window sill, and _climbed_ to the top. He carried on like that for the remainder of the journey, until the Conference Center's blocky silhouette came into view. He ducked behind an air ventilator on top of the building he stood on, trying to get a visual of the dozens of people coming in and out of the place.

"I'm in position." He murmured into his com, hooking his fingers into his ear to press onto the recording mechanism.

Now, he waited.

* * *

Natasha had hated this plan from the very beginning.

Get Pepper out, sweep the area, and then, if they didn't find anything, ditch. It was clunky, basic, and far too broad. They needed to be tight, in these kinds of situations, grasping between two impossible brick walls, so that the only way to go, was forward. In her opinion, there were too many variables, too many cracks for the water to bleed into, too many holes in the ship, for it to _actually_ sail. She felt a wave of anxiety wash over her, not the rushing sense of adrenaline that you felt, when you escaped with your ass from an exploding building— _no,_ this was the feeling she got when things were about to go terribly wrong.

She could look over her history, flip through every mission she had ever been assigned, and pinpoint every time shit had gone wrong, based on her decision to _ignore_ her first instinct. _We are animals of instinct, Natalia,_ Alexi had once told her, _and while most of it is based on unnecessary primal hardwiring, there is a significance in the evolution of instinct, that we_ cannot _afford to overlook._

Training could only get one so far. And so, it was the ideal in the 'significance of evolution' that a Black Widow agent was trained upon. Well, that _and_ a gun. But Natasha knew all too well that instinct was power—it didn't deal with emotion, it didn't deal with humanity; it was primitive _,_ bestial, and it _evolved._

And something told her, they were dangerously close to walking outside of instinct, and crossing into something frighteningly close to pure human chance. Sometimes, that was okay. They learned the hard way from Ultron, that you needed to be more than _robotic_ to make not just the _right_ decision, but the _moral_ one. But this wasn't that kind of question—they weren't asking themselves what the right was here. Because that wasn't the way Peggy Carter was running the show, and it wasn't the way Steve wanted to see her _running_ it. She was past all this, she had passed the human threshold long ago, and crossed over into the realm of what Alexi had fondly called: 'calculator instinct.' Literally. Calculators, well, calculated. But that was all they did—they never expanded, they never changed, they just _ran the numbers._

Chances were, Peggy must have known someone would come for her, at some point in time, and she had prepared for it. No, she had done more than prepare. She had _planned_ down to a second. And Natasha would know, because a long time ago, she had done the same thing. So yeah, _not_ trusting her instinct was not an option here. Not if she wanted to save Pepper's life. So, what did her instinct tell her?

She gently knocked on Pepper's prep room door, her hand running down to her Soviet-made Makarov, peacefully tucked into the holster on her thigh. To say in the least, Peggy Carter wasn't the only woman who knew how to shoot someone in the heart.

* * *

Sam circled the building, occasionally updating Steve on people's car choices: 'Ooo, we got a nice, green Lamborghini spotted on the fourth block of Stacker Ave,' 'that R23 Audi looks good with _that_ paint job,' 'okay, so, when we get a nice warm welcome back into heroville, I'mma use some of that Avenger grant money to buy a Ferrari." Steve had yet to respond with something other than a stern-sounding: " _Sam_."

Okay, _Dad_.

But that was just the way Steve was—all serious and practically no sense of humor. Still, he couldn't blame him, he just wanted his girl to be okay, after everything was said and done. Which was _finneeee._ But also, how could it be totally fine when the woman had murdered thousands of people, and now, planned on coming after Tony's girl. _Shouldn't we tell Tony?_ No, absolutely not. Steve had seemed to think they could do a better job without Stark, than _with_ him.

And maybe he was right. Tony had a habit of taking everything as an _overly_ personal attack. Learning Cap's ex-girlfriend was the one who had a target on Pepper's back... Yeah, he could see why that could get sticky. But then again… Tony knew it was _sticky._ He's the one who started all of this bullshit, wasn't he? You wanna save the world? Throw a nuke into a wormhole that might actually kill you. You wanna start a team? Make yourself the guy they can all hate. You wanna be a leader? Pick the next best guy for the job. You wanna be with the girl you love? Give up a part of who you are.

Yeah, Stark probably realized what a bitch this job actually was. Because while Steve always knew what was moral, what was _good_ —literally, it was a superpower all on its own—he had a harder time knowing what was _wrong._ Or when to stop.

He unlocked Red Wing from his jetpack and sent him down into the crowds, making sure his newly-installed 'invisa-skin' was working properly. (Given the fact that he couldn't see Red Wing, he figured the invisibility thing was working). He broadcasted the robot's feed back onto his personal screen that was attached to his armband. Sam was about to call Red Wing back, when he caught sight of the familiar fiery red locks of Natasha. She was wearing her typical Black Widow garb, dressed, it seemed, for a mission. She was heading towards the West Exit. _Except_ , it wasn't Nat. It-It couldn't have been. Because Nat had just radioed that she was almost to Pepper.

No, that wasn't Natasha Romanoff.

And if it wasn't Natasha, then there was only one other person it could have been.

"Natasha, what exit are you taking Pepper to?"

"The West Exit—why?"

"Because I got something. Steve, you might wanna—"

Steve's voice came breaking through the conversation. "I'm on it."

* * *

Natasha could feel her heartrate begin to accelerate as she waited for Pepper's assistant to fetch her from the back room. She felt exposed on a new level. _Looks like Peggy's wearin' a face this time, and it isn't hers._ Sam's words, seconds before, still echoed in her mind as if she had just heard them. She had copied _her_ face. What did that mean? What kind of move was that? Her mind was racing, her instinct thrown out of whack. _Run._ It screamed at her in a visceral, defensive voice.

"Okay, Anderson," Pepper was coming out of her room, crossing her arms and looking royally pissed about being interrupted, "what is it you wanted?" Her assistant came out behind her, looking a little shaken or taken aback. Natasha could only imagine that Pepper chewed her ear off for even attempting to ask her to speak with her bodyguard.

Natasha offered a brisk nod to Pepper, knowing full-well she was under the guise of retired Black Ops warrior, Anderson Jane—the only person Tony Stark would ever trust with someone so precious in his life. Except, for well, maybe Natasha. "I'm sorry for the interruption, Miss. Potts, but while I was doing a perimeter sweep, I picked up on strong traces of ammonium nitrate."

Pepper's brows knitted together, her eyes widening. "Ammonium nitrate? What? _Dynamite_?"

"That's right, ma'am. Obviously, we're working on a solution to get everyone out of the Conference Center, but my priority, is _not_ them, but _you_." She folded her arms across her chest, underneath her breasts, knowing full-well Pepper bought it.

"No, that's unacceptable, Anderson." Pepper looked up to meet Natasha's eyes. She could see the cold, steely, 'I'm not moving, until you make me' glint in those blue irises that Tony, himself, must have fallen in love with. "I'm staying put until everyone is out of this place. These are innocent people, and a great many of them are my friends."

Natasha sighed and looked down. Why did it _always_ come to this? She closed her eyes and gently pulled at the alpha mesh around her chin, pulling it off in a single motion. When she looked up again, Pepper was staring at her with a wickedly shocked face. Her assistant dropped her clipboard and backed into the corner. In any other circumstance, Natasha probably would have laughed, but they didn't have much time.

"So, I lied. Are you surprised?" Natasha snapped, waving a hand in a 'duh' motion, but didn't stop speaking. "Look, we don't have much time, Pepper. There's someone out there who wants you dead. Got it? So, _you're_ going to come with me, or I swear to _God, I_ will be the one who kills you."

Pepper's shocked face had quickly turned into a murderous frown, but she didn't reject Natasha's ultimatum. She gingerly grabbed her purse, hooked it over her shoulder, and gave a dignified 'go on' motion with her hand. Natasha grabbed Pepper's wrist and motioned to the assistant to follow behind them, before she led them out of the room.

* * *

M16 hadn't planned on donning this guise, but then again, casting doubt onto any situation was what she did best.

She made her way, undetected, to the doorway of the West Exit. Her fingers encircled around the throwing knives tucked neatly in the confines of her jacket. She didn't want this to be messy. Sharp. Controlled. Clean.

"This _way,_ Potts, come _on._ "

She stepped closer towards the door.

* * *

Natasha broke out into the back, empty lot behind the Conference Center. Pepper and her secretary, whom she had learned on their wild escape, was named Lisa, fell out behind her onto the grassy null. They were all heavily breathing, but at least, they made it out alive.

"Sam, where are you?" Natasha snapped into her com.

"Comin' your way, Tash." Sam buzzed in over the feed. "Be there in 10."

Nat sighed silently in relief and turned back to Pepper. She offered her a bit of a smile, but it was only returned with a fiery, cold glare. "Natasha, what is going on?" Pepper had this insane way of looking dangerously angry, while at the same time, wickedly confused.

"You know, nothing too crazy, just—" She didn't have time to finish her sentence as she was flung back into a wall. And given the resounding _BOOM,_ as she was dropped into a dumpster _,_ it wasn't a soft landing.

Pepper's eyes were wide as she watched Natasha get picked up, nearly ten feet off the ground, and then _hurled_ into the air. She turned sharply behind her to catch sight of the figure of Natasha Romanoff emerging out from the foggy cloud. She looked back to the where Natasha had been thrown and only caught sight of a crumpled figure, turned away from Pepper, and on her side. By some impossible event, there were two Natashas. What the hell was this night turning into?

Natasha groaned from beneath the lid of the dumpster she had been thrown in and leaped out, racing to stand by Pepper's side. "Where does Steve find these people?" She hissed under her breath as the other Natasha drew closer. She was taking steps that seemed to slow the very world down as she did. Natasha and Pepper could feel the power radiating off of her, even as she took such slow, careful steps towards them. She could have been taking a leisurely stroll, but Nat knew it was anything but.

"Pepper, get behind me."

"Who—What is that? I—"

"Get. Behind. Me. _NOW."_ She snapped as she shoved her forcibly behind her powerful body. She looked head-on at the approaching Natasha, who was a masque of cold and calculating beauty. It was like staring into the _Twilight Zone,_ and seeing yourself, devoid of everything you were within, and only seeing the parts that laid without. _Who would you be, if you weren't what you_ are?

Natasha unlocked her electric shockers from her belt and they _zapped_ to life, she cocked her head to the side, watching the other Natasha with a dangerous intention. "You're not coming anywhere near her, you know that, right?"

The other Natasha stopped what she was doing, at Natasha's question, and watched her with some sort of voided energy. She didn't give a shit who lived or died here—but she would leave _only_ when she had done what she needed to do. It was written all over her face. A calculator, stuck on another equation, running the numbers _one more time…_

"I don't want to play games, Miss. Romanoff." The other Natasha spoke, finally, watching her with an uninterested gaze. "Therefore, leave; before you force my hand."

Natasha narrowed her eyes. "The thing is, I don't have a problem forcing your hand." And she leaped at the other girl, as the two Natashas collided in mid-air like two elegant comets crashing slowly, gracefully in the middle of space.

* * *

Steve just knew he had to run.

He had to run to save Pepper, to protect Natasha, and to, obviously, stop Peggy from doing something she would regret. She would regret this. _His_ Peggy would have never been able to live with herself for something so heinous… No, his Peggy wouldn't have done any of this, in the first place. His Peggy would have rather _died_ than commit the murders and the killings and the massacres she was responsible for.

 _She isn't who you thought she was…_ Bucky's voice echoed in his head as he raced around the Conference Center. The heaviness of those words seemed to hang in the very oxygen he desperately tried to swallow down.

As long as he wasn't too late. As long as he got there on time. As long as he reached her. He could stop this, he knew he could.

He made a sharp corner—another block, and he would be there.

* * *

Natasha screamed viscerally as Natasha 2.0's knife went into her shoulder, slicing easily into her soft flesh. She stumbled, and _almost_ righted herself back onto her feet, but the other Natasha was just too quick. She kicked her—with all of her almighty super soldier muscle and power—right in the abdomen, and Natasha felt every single ounce of breath leave her body, as she keeled over onto her knees.

So, this was it. She looked up into the eyes of the other Natasha, who wasn't really her, but wasn't really Peggy Carter, either. Even though she was. But she wasn't. Jesus Christ. Natasha had smirk to herself. This space between conflict and misidentity—the place she had spent her entire life within—this was where she was going to die. On her knees, in front of a girl with _her_ face, and the worst part was, as she spared a weak look back at Pepper, she was going to let _her_ down.

And Pepper, remarkable as she was resolute, held Natasha's gaze. There were tears in her eyes. Truly terrified tears. Tears that said everything, tears that spoke of empty wishes, tears that spoke of her _breaking, splitting_ heart. Tears that were shed over her life that was about to end. And that's when Nat realized just how hard it is to the hold the gaze of someone that you _disappointed_ with such breadth _._ Even if they didn't think so, even if they thought the world of you—in your heart, what happened was _on_ you…and nothing could _ever_ change that.

Peggy lifted Nat's chin, turning her face away from Pepper, so their eyes met. She looked at her for a moment, as if she needed to remind herself what her _own_ mask looked like. "Surely you realized by now, you _cannot_ fight a force of nature."

Natasha felt Pepper's sorrowful eyes on the back of her head. She closed her own. She thought of Clint, probably tucking his kids in bed, kissing Laura goodnight, and wrapping his arms around her as they fell asleep. She thought of Alexi's corpse laying on the cold floor of an old factory. She thought of him bleeding out. _Alone._ She thought of Sam, laughing, his eyes wrinkling in warm, extraordinary exuberance. So, she found, that when she reopened her eyes, she had made her bed and had resolved to die for Pepper Potts. Because no one would miss _her._ The world would go on without Natasha Romanoff, but Pepper—' _live for yourself, not for someone else'_ —the world _needed_ her.

"Pepper— _RUN_!" She screamed, before, in one, fluid moment, she grabbed hold of the outstretched hands of Peggy Carter and shoved her to the ground, scratching her nails across the other woman's face to tear off her mask.

And when she did. Her heart stopped in her chest.

Because beneath the mask, was _not_ Peggy Carter, but some nondistinctive HYDRA-created super solider. Another Winter Soldier. Another nameless Black Widow. She smirked wickedly at Natasha, before she bit down on the cyanide tablet in the back of her mouth and coughed the toxin right onto Nat's face.

Natasha gasped and dropped the body of the woman onto the concrete and turned sharply, her eyes wildly roaming for Pepper, only to catch the sight of the red-head's assistant, holding a _gun._ Peggy had been with them the whole time.

* * *

Steve turned the corner around the Conference Center, to _see_ Pepper's secretary holding a gun, a horrified and betrayed Pepper, a badly-beaten Natasha, and the corpse of an unidentified woman with swollen lips and pus pouring from her mouth. He quickly gathered what had happened.

"PEGGY. NO. Put the gun _down_." His hand unlocked the mechanism on the compartmentalized shield and it extended into its full-rounded size. He gripped it steadily, but his voice quavered wickedly over the words he spoke.

The secretary, _Peggy,_ turned to Steve and looked at him with the most _deplorable_ gaze. There wasn't malice, there wasn't hate, there wasn't even anger. She could have been staring at a blank wall. And that hurt more than anything she could have done. "You're late."

 _You're late… A HYDRA base 80 years ago, the grace of her lips against his…_ Steve froze. He hesitated. And he would regret it for the rest of his life.

Peggy turned back to Pepper, who was shaking, quivering, everything about her speaking of her scorching, searing _fear._ Sheunlocked the safety of her pistol, and she was about to take aim, when Sam Wilson appeared out of the sky and flew right into the side of her, knocking her off balance. Her shot went shaking off somewhere into the night.

Steve blinked, realized what had just happened, and rushed into action, running for Peggy as soon as he regained his composure. Immediately, as she was righting herself, he flung the shield directly at her, the vibranium whizzing and buzzing through the air like something that was alive, but she dodged it easily. Steve ran towards her, only to begin fighting her hand-to-hand. Except, he quickly found out, she was much _too_ good. She was strong, fast, and knew how to use her body, in every way possible. Sam began firing energy beams at her overhead, and one of them hit her on the shoulder. In a moment of sheer surprise, she was caught off guard, a painful expression passed over her face, allowing Steve to knock her balance off, with the swipe of his feet.

She tripped and was knocked to the ground, a frustrated grunt escaping through her gritted teeth. Steve moved towards her, hoping to grab her and incapacitate her, before she could make another move. Sam, apparently, having the same idea, was slowly advancing, growing closer, but Peggy was _faster_. She threw her arms upwards into the air and Sam went twirling, tumbling through the air, _crashing_ into the top floor window of the Conference Center. Steve was flung back as well, into the grass 20 feet away. The world went painfully sideways as his head collided with the solid dirt of the earth.

There was screaming that erupted from inside the Conference Center as the entire place became very aware that Sam Wilson, the Bird Man, the _Falcon—_ a war criminal, had just been thrown into the very orbit of their world. People began to run out of the exits, pouring from every direction. It was chaos. They had to move. People would get hurt. Innocent lives. Not _one_ of them had asked for this.

Steve, laying in his position on the ground, weakly lifted his head to see Peggy stand and wipe herself off daintily. She caught him staring at her and an introverted, dissociative grin came to her face, as she turned sharply and ran towards the street. Steve moaned in pain, something was twisted wrong in his arm—the one he had landed on, when he fell. He pulled himself up with a great amount of effort and ran to Natasha and Pepper. Natasha was gently speaking to Pepper who was leaning against the wall. Nothing seemed wrong, Pepper wasn't hurt. She was speaking, wasn't she? But something about the way _Natasha_ was speaking to her…

"Natasha," he spoke slowly, his words slurred in concussed speech, "what's—what's going on?"

Natasha looked up suddenly at Steve. Her eyes were shocked with some undeniable, inevitable truth. Steve stepped closer and Pepper, realizing he was there, swallowed, took a shaky breath, and removed her hands from a gaping, ugly wound in her stomach. Blood was seeping through every crevice of the fine fabric of her dress, her eyes were glassy, and her skin—already a usual pale—was _greying._ She was dying. "God, that _really_ hurts." She managed with a little laugh, but it was clear she was only doing it for their benefit.

"I bet it does, doll." Steve spoke sympathetically, moving towards her to examine the wound. The missed shot. Peggy had thrown them all, _not_ to get them off her case, but to redirect the bullet into Pepper.

"She needs a doctor, Steve." Natasha cut-in. There was no time for sympathy, no time for anything, now. If Pepper had any chance, she needed medical attention.

But Peggy… He turned sharply to see the disappearing shape of his girl fading into the night… This might have been his only chance.

Sam landed behind Steve. He wasn't in bad shape for having been thrown through a window, but there was a large gash sliced down the side of his face, blood lazily oozing down his cheek. "We'll go after her, Cap—but _she_ needs help, _now._ And you're the only one who can get there fast enough. _"_

Steve met Sam's eyes, nodded, and turned back to Natasha, who was wrapping a torn piece of fabric from Pepper's dress around the wound, as tight as she could. "Alright, ma'am, hang tight." He said gently as he swooped Pepper up into his arms, and before he even knew what he was doing, he was running.

Running like hell.

* * *

Sam scooped Natasha up under her arms and soared into the sky, his eyes hungrily searching for Carter. His left wing, which had braced the impact of his fall into the Conference Center, was damaged. He could only reach about 100 feet while supporting both his and Natasha's weight, and unfortunately, that wasn't enough altitude to see _all_ of Washington clearly.

But luckily for them, they didn't need to. Peggy was racing down Constitution Avenue, leaping across the street to a moving bus. With one elegant motion, she jumped—literally, _jumped—_ onto the moving bus with a fatal finesse. And by the looks of it, no one inside noticed the extra passenger on top of the bus.

"You see her?" Natasha called over the wind whipping past them.

Sam had definitely seen her. This girl had just shot Pepper Potts—she wasn't about to get away with it. "Copy."

"Drop me." Nat commanded to him.

"Are you sure, Tash?" He asked her. It was a stupid question. He knew this was personal for her. Pepper was a friendly acquaintance to him, at best, but she was a _friend_ to Natasha.

"Do it, Wilson." She snapped. Sam didn't argue. On her command, as soon as he got close enough, Sam gently dropped her on top of the Greyhound bus.

Peggy, who was still wearing the secretary mask, grinned at the two of them. It was a slimy, unsettling smile, but she didn't speak. She didn't find them worthy of her words. That pissed Sam the hell off. Where was the evil villain monologue everyone else got?

Natasha didn't hesitate, she leaped at Peggy's throat, a glinting knife drawn in her hand.

* * *

Steve felt like every second was going much too slow. He felt like he was dragging. He could hear Pepper's heartbeat begin to slow as her breaths went from labored to shallow. He felt her growing heavier in her arms. Her eyes were cloudy. Her eyelids looked heavy, swollen, and blue-lidded. She began to close them.

" _Pepper_ ," he begged her, his own breath labored as he raced as fast as the cars on the highway above him, "you have to stay _awake."_ He gently shook her.

Her eyes popped back open and she seemed dazed, for a moment, only to remember where she was. She weakly propped her head against Steve's chest, looking up at him with some kind of crazy clarity. "Captain Rogers, I'm going to die." She whispered.

"No, no you're not, ma'am—you're going to live. The hospital, it's right up here. It's right up _here_." He urged her, tears beginning to form in his eyes. She couldn't die. _She couldn't die_. No, Tony…

He almost dropped her, when his thoughts turned to Tony. _She's the one thing I can't live without, Rogers._ And with that verse of profound truth from Tony Stark, he remembered the smile Stark had set him with, the sad and extremely rare vulnerable smile of the great inventor, as he tipped his beer back up to his lips. It was after Ultron. Pepper hadn't allowed him to come home, when she found out he had suited up, even after he told her he wouldn't… Tony came to Steve— _you've been alone for million years, you know what it's like._ And while Steve wasn't entirely thrilled with that self-invitation, he knew Tony was hurting. So, he let him break into his liquor supply and tell him all about the 'miraculous' Pepper Potts—

 _Whew. I was a goner._ Steve saw the hospital coming into view, his heart skipped a beat, as he pushed himself into a _mere_ blur.

 _I knew it as soon as she walked into the fucking room, Capsicle._ He burst in through the hospital doors, screaming for a doctor: "She needs help—she _needs A DOCTOR…"_ He breathlessly gasped out into the blurry faces before him.

 _All those years ago, before I had even stopped dickin' around—I knew I had to be careful with her._ A swarm of doctors, nurses, and technicians gathered around Steve, gently taking Pepper from him. But before he had completely let go of her, Pepper Potts, coming to the rescue as always, grabbed hold of his hand, one last time. It must have taken everything in her, her last full breath of air, to say to him—in a sharply, cutting voice: "Tell Tony I love him and that-" she gasped as her breath hitched in her throat and a sob escaped, "that I'm _so_ _proud_ of the hero he's become _.._." Her indigo-blue eyes drilled into his, fiercely resolved to get this message through to him as tears welled in her eyes. _Steve laughed at his words, Oh, yeah, and why's that?_

And then she was gone, rushed down the hallway on the pull cart. Doctors shouting directions to nurses, nurses racing to make way as they ran towards the surgery wing, all in the desperate attempt to save the life of this _single_ woman. _Because I knew, just by the way she looked at me… It was like the universe sucker-punched my ass into next week, Steve, because I_ knew _she was gonna be_ THE _woman._

Steve stood in hallway, watching down the way the pull-cart had gone, as a nervous crowd watched him, a bleeding, bruised version of their star-spangled-war-hero-turned-bad-guy, dripping sweat and mud onto the squeaky-clean floor of the hospital tile. _You don't really believe that, do ya', Stark?"_

 _You know, I didn't. I'm not a sentimental guy. I can't afford to get pulled down into that kind of bullshit._

 _But then I met her._

* * *

Natasha flipped backwards onto the edge of the bus as Sam circled above, waiting for the prime opportunity to dive bomb Peggy. Using her toes, Nat balanced herself on the edge of the tram, narrowing her eyes at the figure of Peggy at the other end of the bus.

"Why Pepper, huh? _What did she do to deserve that?"_ Natasha snapped at the other girl, everything about her was poised and ready to fight.

Peggy cocked her head, as if she was considering answering, but didn't. Instead, she began to walk towards Natasha, taking the incredibly slow steps that made her seem like she was stuck in her own private slow-motion shot, but she really was just taking her time. Natasha, on the other hand, was not in the mood for her slow-and-steady-always-kills-first routine. She unhooked her Makarov pistol and began firing with dangerous aim, right at Peggy.

But that's the thing about Natasha. She hadn't thought about what she was about to do. Because she wasn't the calculator, she was the _human._ And Peggy, as she held up her hands in a terrifying apex, was exactly the opposite; she was a instinctual _destroyer_. She stopped the bullets in their tracks, and Natasha felt herself freeze, as the bullets turned and began coming towards her in slow, yet deliberate twirling circles of death.

"Give Steven my love." She said with a cold, detached smile on her lips, before she leaped off the bus and onto a faster-moving car zipping past her.

Natasha braced herself for whatever was coming, but Sam, knowing it was too early, swooped in anyway, and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her out of the line of fire. He held her tightly against him as they soared up and away, just in time to see the bullets collide with an advertising board, which 35 seconds ago, would have been Natasha's face.

* * *

Steve was standing in the hallway, outside of the surgery wing, pacing up and down, when Sam and Nat came in through the doors. They were both still panting and sweaty, which gave Steve an inch of hope that maybe, Peggy would walk in through the doors behind them, freed of her mind's entrapment, and apologize for everything she had done…

But as soon as he thought it, he instantly knew how _stupid_ such a hope was. Peggy had destroyed everything tonight. There was no coming back from that. _None._

And that was just his own guilt. When he met Sam's soft brown eyes, he was reminded of the words he had said to him on the beach that day: _you gotta be ready for the hurt it's gonna take to bring her in…_ When Sam had said that, he had only thought of himself, he had been selfish, he hadn't thought of them, of Natasha or Sam… He thought of himself—what 'hurt' could Peggy possibly do to him, that he hadn't already done to himself? The truth was, she could do more than he had even known was possible. She had torn apart a world and she hadn't even blinked an eye.

"Sam," Steve said softly, "I'm sorry." His blue eyes begging his friend's to meet his, but Sam could only shake his head.

"We couldn't afford to fuck this up, Steve, we had to be right _. We had to be right."_ He finally moved his soulful brown eyes to his, usually brimming with characteristically Sam Wilson warmth and energy. But now, there was nothing but icy condemnation.

* * *

An hour passed, but no one had said anything to Steve or Sam or Natasha. All of who, sat in misaligned places around the vacant waiting area. They were the only ones there, at this time of the night (or morning, was probably more accurate), and so had taken to sitting away from each other. Well, kind of. Natasha had, at some point, slumped against Sam's shoulder in an angry, nervous doze. She obviously wasn't sleeping very deeply as her breath was light, but disordered. Steve had taken to staring at the speckled, miscellaneous constellations on the floor's tiling, and he probably would have kept at it for another hour, had it not been the for the slamming of the main doors behind them.

He _knew,_ when every fiber of his body woke up with a nervous-edge, when _every_ tense and terrible memory clotted up his head, and the old, familiar ache of guilt filled his chest, that the man he had dreaded facing, was _finally_ here. His hair was a mess, his eyes were wild, and everything about him screamed of a man barely hanging onto sanity.

"Where is _she?"_ He was shouting and snapping at nurses who ran to calm him down. "No, I need to see _her_ — I want to see—" And that moment, that hanging syllable of his last word, hung in the air like a frozen puff of breath on a frigid, winter's day, as his eyes had found the observation window where Pepper lay behind the paned-window. Every doctor in the hospital, on call that night, must have been in there, working on her. A deep, anguished groan broke from within his chest as he shriveled against the window, leaning his forehead against it. His eyes glazed over as his hand gently ghosted the glass, his fingers tapping it ever-so-softly as if he was thinking through _every, possible_ way he could fix this. But the truth was, as he turned sharply from the window and found Sam and Natasha, he knew there was nothing he could do.

Natasha sleepily murmured something to him, causing him to jerk backwards in a _literal_ wave of shock. His eyes grew wide, his breath hitched in his throat, and for a moment, it looked like he was about to cry, as his eyes began to move to the corner of the waiting room. And there, sitting away from everyone and everything, he found the blue eyes he had been hunting for. Nat was instantly on her feet, she looked woozy, but had seemingly ignored it, reaching for his arm. Her fingers slid right over his silk shirt and fell uselessly to her side.

"Tony." She whispered numbly, but it was too late. He was already moving towards Steve. His face fractured and broken and angry and scared and twisted and devastated in every which way. It wasn't even a face, but a matter of broken parts, parts, that perhaps only Pepper Potts could have pieced back together.

"Tony, listen to me," Steve was rising from his seat, trying to hold his hands up in defense, "I'm sure she had a reason. Peggy never did anything without a—"

He suddenly had pinned Steve up against a wall, his hand curling into a gnarled, bleeding fist—Steve could only briefly wonder why it was bleeding—before it came down onto the side of his face. "You know what your problem is?" Tony Stark asked him in a dangerously controlled voice, as Steve, knowing there was no use in putting up a fight, knowing he _didn't want_ to fight him, sunk to the floor before him.

He couldn't meet his eyes. He couldn't bear to look Tony in the eyes and see the disaster of a man he had left there. "You think there's a reason to everything, but the big, fat, and ugly truth is— _will you fucking look at me, Rogers-_ " he abruptly screamed, causing Nat and Sam to both jump from where they were standing. But no one dared to stop Tony. They know what he said rang with truth. Steve slowly moved his eyes up to meet Tony's but regretted it instantly. Tony didn't need to say anything, but he did anyway:

"The way I see it, you think the world owes you a sundae full of reasons, for _anything_ and _everything_." He grabbed Steve's arm and yanked him to his feet, dragging him over to the observation window. It forced Steve to either look in at the carnage of Pepper's mangled body or Tony's mangled eyes.

"So, let me give you a little lesson, old man, the world doesn't _owe you or anyone shit!_ And most the time," his breath came out in panicked, little hitches, "it's all a bunch of meaningless _bullshit_." He screamed the last word, slamming his fist against the window. His eyes were filled with an irascible, unmanaged anger that could have swallowed Steve Rogers and all his shame, in an instant. But that anger, it took so much from him, Steve could see him bleeding from within from all that rage. It was draining him dry, _exhausting him._

"Look in the window, Cap," he reached out weakly and with the last bit of everything left in him and slammed Steve's face into the glass, hard enough to cause a nurse within to look up at the commotion, " _do you see her?"_ He asked breathlessly, a creaky, vacant voice taking over his usually fearless, vagabond tone. "That's my _girl_ … That's my _..._ " He was struggling, trying with all his might, to say her name. But she was his strength, and to say her name, to _verbally manifest_ her… It would make it all true for him. And for once, the futurist, didn't want to think of a future without Pepper.

"Bottom line: this, right _here_ ," Tony rapped on the glass with his knuckle, "there's no _reason_ for this." His eyes refocused and he was suddenly looking back at Steve. "I don't _care_ , Steve, who or what happened to my girl, but if she dies, for _nothing_ , that's _on you._ " He said softly, his eyes never leaving Steve's.

"That should be reason enough for you."


	13. Worth It

Just before dawn, give or take a few minutes before 4:30 a.m., Natasha stood in front of the large, gridded hospital window. Her forehead was pressed against the glass and her eyes were closed, as a thousand faces of the people she loved, flashed behind her eyelids.

The look Sam gave her as he swooped in to save her on top of the bus.

The look on Tony's face as he realized what had happened to Pepper.

The look on Steve's face as _he_ realizedwhat had happened to Pepper.

The look on _Pepper's_ face as she accepted that death was imminent.

Some damaged, crippled part of her wanted to keep her eyes closed so she could keep sinking deeper into that self-suffering, self-pitying ocean. But she knew she couldn't. What was done was done. They had tried. They had failed. She opened her eyes and glanced down at her watch, and by the looks of it, they didn't have the time for self-pity. Their twelve-hour safety limit, Sharon had given them, was up in less than two minutes.

And it turned out, Sharon had _meant_ the exact second of the twelfth hour. As beneath her, in the parking lot, five sleek, black SUVs pulled in, and she could only assume they belonged to the FBI. Sam, Natasha, and Steve were all federally-wanted war criminals—if they were caught, they wouldn't be heading to some county jail, they'd be heading to Congress for sentencing. They'd be forced into Registration or worse yet, because she knew Steve would never sign, they'd be sent to the ungodly likes of the Pentagon or Guantanamo Bay. And given that she had spent most of her life in captivity, in brainwashed isolation, she didn't have to go far to imagine what the government would want from them. _Forget all the good we've done_ , she turned to glance back at a crestfallen Tony Stark, slumped in his chair with a violently torn apart expression on his face, _there was no going back from this_.

What they had done to Pepper, to _Tony_ , no, there was nothing that could stop them, now. They were all on a path to total, mutually-assured destruction. They deserved it. Everything they had coming for them, they deserved it. She had to smile to herself, a resistant, melancholy, nasty little smile. Because, even though she knew she deserved to pay, there was still that _awful,_ mangled nature of her soul, the Widow—the sign of her soiled heart that would never, ever leave. She raised her eyes, the bright, cold moon, outside the window, reflected back within her sharp green eyes. Some things, she had to admit, despite how awful you were, were worth fighting for. Because for some reason, for a terrible selfish and unholy reason, Natasha Romanoff refused to be thrown into an American prison.

She turned to Steve and Sam, both still sitting in miscellaneous, discarded positions. "We have to go." She said, as the familiar wave of adrenaline washed over her.

A doctor entered the waiting area, walking over to Tony, but Nat hardly noticed. That doctor had been coming out every hour, per Tony's request, to update him (or, more innocuously, tell him much the same thing) on Pepper's condition.

"The FBI, Steve, they're here. We have to go _now_."

Steve, who was sitting below her, glanced back at Tony with a heartbroken expression, who had followed the doctor into the hallway. She knew that look. She could see the bunch of his jawline as he tried to swallow some impossible truth down. She could see the torn ligaments and structures of his soul, being split apart and undone, as he was faced with the impossible decision: leave Tony and Pepper, and the mess he had created, or stand by his friend. He looked up to Natasha, his eyes, unintentionally pleading for a solution. He knew she didn't have one, but he did so, nonetheless. Just to be a jackass. Just to make her feel more _responsible._

"I can't leave, Nat." He said hoarsely, his voice scratchy from misuse or overuse. She couldn't tell. Probably both.

Natasha sighed, "Rogers, I know you think that you're—" and that's when she happened to look up, right as the double-doors of the hallway opened wide to reveal Tony and the doctor. The doors closed but swung open again to show the two once more. She stopped talking and started watching the door. Opening-and-closing, opening-and-closing, opening-and-closing; all in rapid, mad succession as people entered and left. How did this hospital have so many fucking people walking in-and-out of those doors?

Another nurse walked through, the doors swung open to reveal Tony, this time he was looking away from the doctor, his eyes unfocused. The door swung closed but flopped back open from its own momentum. Now, Tony was bending down, his hand reaching from some indistinct place behind him for support, slouching, _breaking in two…_

Oh

Jesus.

 _No._

And that's when she heard _him_. She had heard the death rattle of countless people, enemies and friends, when they finally called it quits, when their lives bled out of them in _sound…_ But this was a death rattle that came from someone who was still _alive…_ and it was wrought with an exhaustion, with a _pain_ deeply rooted in his love for one woman _…_ A deep, gutless groan like a bridge, bending from weak support… She could hear the snap of the weight as this modern Atlas dropped the world onto himself, as this god of ingenuity and invention had no more tricks to pull from his bag. She heard the very essence of Tony Stark; his will, his _iron_ , his heart, scream out in a mess of 'Oh, no, baby, no, no, no, no WHAT AM I GOING TO DO HOW AM I WHAT AM I PEPPER NO NO NO OH NO, NOT MY PEPPER _NOOO_ _NOOOOO Jesus, fucking kill me—GOD FUCKING KILL ME_.'

She heard him scream for Pepper. But she would never answer him, not ever again.

"Steve," she whispered, and she knew he had heard it, too. "We have to _go_." Tears were flooding her eyes. "We have to _go_!" She screamed, and pulled at his arm, only to catch sight of Sam standing beside her. She couldn't look into _his_ eyes, she couldn't look at him, or she _knew_ she would lose her sense of control.

Steve was standing now, Natasha's hands wrapped tightly around his arm, pulling with all of her might against his super soldier strength. His eyes were flooded with ten million things. All of them involved going to his _friend_ , going to Tony.

"No, _Steve, look at me_." She said sharply, grabbing his face, and yanking it so that his eyes would meet hers. Enraged, heartbroken tears were flooding down her face, but she hardly noticed. "There is nothing we can do here. _You got us into this,_ and you owe it to me—to Sam—to get the hell out of here _. Now, come."_ With an agonizing reluctant look back at Tony, Steve allowed for her to drag him out of the hallway. And as soon as they reached the main waiting room, the federal agents burst in.

"Hold it right there, Cap." The lead officer snapped before the group of them. They were holding an array of nasty weapons; pistols, machine guns, semi-automatic rifles, electric shockers—did the one in the back have a _whip_?

"Shit." Sam snapped next to Natasha.

Natasha sighed and looked down at the group of agents before them. Her green eyes were filling with a burning rage that looked like it could have disintegrated them where they stood. "I am done _dealing_ with this shit today." She laconically snapped.

"Cool it, Widow—hands up and we all go home today. No one gets hurt." The agent closest to her said.

She smirked. "Oh, I think it's a bit too late for that." Before anyone—not even Cap or Sam—could react, she pulled out her pistol and aimed it upwards at the main support beam of the ceiling, shooting three calculated blows to the crucial areas. The whole wall went down in front of them blocking the agents from reaching them.

"Come on." She said, her snarky smirk from before, dissipating instantly. "The quinjet's another two miles away."

* * *

Laura Barton was unsuccessfully attempting to stay awake, while reading in the living room of the Barton farmhouse. Draped in comfy, oversized flannels of Clint's, a blanket was lovingly wrapped around her—perhaps by a caring husband, who had snuck up to bed, hoping not to wake her. A pair of half-broken, half-crooked Harry Potter-like glasses rested on the edge of her petite nose. Her chin rested gently on her chest, while her breathing filtered deeply in-and-out of her body. The book she had been reading, Joseph Conrad's _Heart of Darkness,_ slipped from her limp hand that hung off the side of the armchair, and onto the floor. She frowned slightly at the noise, but she remained fitfully asleep.

It had been a long day, Nathaniel (named after his Aunt Nat), was taking the label of 'terrible twos' to new limits, and kept Laura going all day. Thankfully, Lila and Cooper had school during the day, as she wasn't sure she could manage all of them at full capacity. But life was better when Clint was around, he took the kids with him, wherever he went. He taught them his odd little tricks and lessons about life in all his wonderfully eccentric ways. They needed him. She saw it on Cooper's face when he taught him how to hammer a nail in place, or when Lila held his hand. He was Superman to them. He could do no wrong.

But Clint never thought of himself that way. In fact, when they first started dating—Jesus, fifteen years ago?! Had it really been _that_ long?—Clint had been jaded, struggling to keep a smile on his face. She knew it hadn't ended well with Natasha. He never had told her the full story, even after all their years together. She assumed it wasn't her business, so she shouldn't pry. Still, at times, she saw it on his face—that half-aching, half-dazed look of 'how did I end up here?' She knew he loved her. She knew he would never leave her. But there were moments, when she just wanted to ask him, if he was _really_ happy.

That was marriage, though…wasn't it?

* * *

Outside the Barton farmhouse, a lone figure stood on the hill behind the cozy, well-loved building, hidden by the darkness of a grove of trees. She had been watching for hours, now, carefully awaiting until the last light went off in the living room. But as the night grew colder, the nippy, March air settling in around her, she knew it was getting late. That light wasn't going off.

She pulled out her compact, yet heavy-duty Glock, acknowledged the lives below her, and came out of trees.

* * *

Laura awoke to the sound of the front door being opened. She sleepily lifted her head up from its uncomfortable position on her chest, wincing slightly at how stiff her neck was, and fixed her gaze on the sight of the door. It had come to a stop, gently tapping against the interior wall of the house. The outside world, just beyond the porch steps, yawned back at her, big and black and full of noise. She frowned slightly—that was odd. She rose to her feet, her toes cracking as she did, padded on over to the door, and shut it softly. That wasn't the first time that had happened, as that door had a history of unlatching and coasting open. But not when it was locked… And she _remembered_ Clint locked it before they sat down to watch TV that night.

A nervous chill ran through her bones and she found herself pulling her husband's flannels tighter around her. _Laura, cool it—_ she snapped to herself— _you just need to get some sleep and everything will be—_

But before she could even finish that thought, in the dim light of the living room lamp, she saw a woman, standing there amidst the comforts of her home. Laura's breath caught in her throat as she tried to make sense of what was happening.

The woman, whoever she was, was wearing a worn, white tank top, a black belt, camo pants, and black combat boots. Her hair was braided tightly against her head, pulled back all the way behind her to reveal the entirety of her facial muscles. Sharply-lined fixtures of bones and fissures outlined her face like some kind sculpted rock edifice that had taken millions of years to form. Symmetrical cheekbones, perfectly spaced eyes, and lips that were shadowy, but woven into a tight line. She was terrifying, but beautiful, all the same.

She was frowning at Laura; an unremarkable expression, for a very remarkable face. It was as if her expressions were _new_ —as if other smiles, frowns, smirks, grimaces, scowls, grins, sneers, and tears—all of it, was brand new when it came to her face. If she smiled, Laura would have believed, it could have changed how people _smiled_. And yet, here she was, frowning at her, with a plain, unexceptional grimace. This was something she did. All the time. It was nothing new. Nothing 'exceptional.'

"Who are you?" Laura asked her, with a cautious quaver in her voice.

Her frown deepened at her question. "I don't really have a good answer for you." Her eyes shifted upwards to meet Laura's. "I used to know."

Laura was taken aback, and she involuntarily stepped backwards. This wasn't how this breaking-and-entering thing worked. "Look, I uhm… My husband—he's familiar with your kind of people… Are you… Are you looking for him?" She asked gently, not wanting to set this, obviously, dangerous woman off.

"No, darling, I'm most certainly _not_ looking for Clint Barton." Her eyes suddenly lost their color, bleeding out of the warm brown, and darkening to a cold, depthless black. "I'm just sorry _you_ have to be a part of this." The woman pulled the gun from her waistband before Laura could even act, before she could even take another breath, before she could even scream for her sleeping husband upstairs—she dropped to floor. Her forehead burst open and her eyes unseeing, as the blood from the crater in her forehead, dripped into them.

* * *

The thing about being deaf is you don't hear _anything_. But the thing about having a slightly psychotic brother, who has trained you to go off of nothing but vibrations, to sense the very _inkling_ of sound, is that you manage to do without it. And the thing about gun shots is—those don't just have a vibration, they're a _sonic boom_ of soundwaves. A compressed bomb of sound jumbled into a knot of audible, solid energy. And the instant Clint Barton 'heard' the gunshot reverberate from downstairs, he was awake.

He was awake, grabbing his bow, tucked beneath the bed frame, and leaping across the mattress to quickly snatch his hearing implants up off the end table. He practically jammed them into his ears and turned them on full volume—he needed to be fully aware of the situation, here. He disregarded his pants and shirt on the floor, kicking them out of his way, as he raced out of he and Laura's bedroom. As he exited, he saw Cooper and Lila were both standing in the hallway, nervously watching below. Lila was crying.

"Daddy," she pleaded, her bottom lip quivering. "Mama's downstairs."

"Cooper," Clint snapped at his oldest child, his son, a silent mess of icy fear. "Take your sister into Nate's room and lock the door. Do _not_ open it, unless I tell you to."

"But, _Daddy_ —" Lila screamed, making a move to run to him, but Cooper grabbed her and pulled her into his arms. Clint met his eyes, a single tear pooled over his twelve-year-old's eyes and ran down his soft, freckled cheek. He offered a single nod to his father—there was a lot in that look, a lot Clint couldn't process, or he wouldn't be able to leave them. So, he refused to think about it.

He waited until Cooper had managed to gather his sister into Nathaniel's room and lock the door. Once he heard the secure _click,_ he turned sharply, snapping his quiver into place, before he ran to the bannister that overlooked the living room. It was silent, and nothing seemed to be amiss. His time growing up as a carnie kid, a thief, an Avenger, taught him better. Sometimes the things we least expected, were usually the case.

He leaped off of the bannister of the upstairs and landed directly in the living room. Barely making a sound, in the process. He stood to his full height and surveyed the room, with a brief nod in both directions. Nothing was out of place.

Nothing except for Laura's absence.

Clint's heart was bursting in his chest like it was a battering ram, banging against the sides of his rib cage. He had done this a million times. He had invaded homes, played this game of cat-and-mouse, and lots of times, he had been in the same 'in-the-dark' situation. But even so, none of the other times had been in his own home. None of the other times had included his _family._

He reached over to the only lamp still on in the living room, and switched it off, coating the entire room in inky darkness. He rounded the corner to the kitchen. It was dark, but he didn't see anything out of the ordinary. "Laura." He whispered into the darkness, but he didn't hear a _sound_. _Throw them off._ He heard Barney whispering in his ear. _Call out to her, but them know you're coming._ "Honey, where are you?" He called, pulling an arrow out of his quiver and latching it into place, pulling it tight.

He silently stole through the downstairs, sweeping through every room, until he came to the hallway that led to the basement. But he didn't make it far, because that's when his bare toes felt something sticky, something wet _squelch_ in between them. He felt his heart actually stop in his chest.

He turned his head 35 degrees to the right, and that's when he saw her

 _saw her_

slumped

against the wall

oozing

from

 _everywhere_

He forgot his position, he forgot his bow, he forgot everything. He only saw Laura. He only saw her head practically cleaved in two because of a high-velocity bullet shot from a short distance. _They had killed her with a military-grade weapon, when they were standing three feet from her…_

His fingers went limp, his bow and arrow dropping to the floor, _splashing_ into the pool of crimson spewing from his wife's head. He dropped to his knees beside her, grabbing her broken face in his shaking, unstable hands. "Baby…" He cried. He didn't realize he had been sobbing, hyperventilating, until he spoke.

a wedding dress that was her mother's

a kiss on the forehead as she laid back in the hospital bed, tears of joy spilling across her face, as a tiny blue bundle of baby and fresh life was handed off to her

you have to be brave, clint, be brave and accept that this isn't the end

be brave

for as straight as you shoot, honey, you are the most _accident_ _-prone_ man, i have ever met

 _i love you_

Clint pulled her against him, sobbing into her hair, with his eyes squeezed shut. He rocked her against him, cradling the pieces and parts of her brain within his cupped hand. "Honey, _no_ … You can't… You can't _leave me… Don't leave me…"_ His face was a crooked, tensed in all directions, as the lines of grief and devestation wove itself into his very expression. His tears ran into Laura's hair. The worst thing was, her hair still smelled like cinnamon shampoo... _The same kind she had used for the past twelve years..._

"Dad?" At the sound of his son's voice, Clint turned, blurry-eyed and weepy, to see Cooper, grasping his sister's hand in a white-knuckled grip. As a woman, despite barely standing above 5'5, towered above his children. She held a gun to the back of Cooper's head, while her hand clasped around Lila's little face. His little girl was crying uncontrollably, tears spewing from her eyes as Laura's blood through Clint's hands.

Clint immediately stood, gently propping Laura against the wall. His eyes locked onto Cooper's, holding his son's gaze with all the reassurance he could offer him in this brief, yet rotten moment in time. "What do _you_ want?" He snapped, his voice raspy, broken, and unhinged, but he refused to look away from his son.

"I have a message for Steve Rogers." She said softly.

Clint's eyes closed at the mention of Steve, as anger poured over him in an exhausted wave. _Always Steve. Always._ He shakily breathed out and reopened his eyes, pulling them away from his children, and forced himself to look up into the face of the woman he knew would be staring back at him. She was just like the videos from that KGB file. Just as lovely, just as deadly, and just as uncaring.

"What does that have to do with _my family_?!" He screamed, rising to his feet, as rage coursed through him. "What does that have to do with _them_?!"—he threw out his hand to his children—"With-with _her_?" He bemoaned over his dead wife, a burst of emotion, practically sent him to his knees again, but he managed to stay on his feet. His eyes locking themselves onto Peggy Carter's.

"Steve is not my _goddamn_ problem." He cried, tears flooding from his eyes. "He's _not_ my problem." His face twisting into a collection of shattered features, all breaking apart from the blood slipping under his feet. "Can't you see that? Just let _my babies_ _go_ …" He hysterically pleaded with her.

Peggy met Clint Barton's eye. She watched his face crumble, she watched his soul split and crack, but she knew he would live through losing Laura. No, it was losing _them_ , her eyes moved down to his children, wrapped up in her grasp, that would _destroy_ him. He had loved his wife, but it was his children that mattered to him. They had created him, molded him, shaped him into a new man. He had taken up the bow, rushed to the rescue of the strays of the superhero world, all for these little children.

She released them, permitting them to run to their father. She watched him snatch up his children, bring them against him, his sobs only matched by theirs. He tucked their faces into him, not allowing them to see their mother. Even after that night, Clint Barton wanted to spare his children from the atrocities of war. In respect to him, she wouldn't ruin them.

But she was in the business of unmaking. And she had a job to do.

That would be her act of kindness, then.

And she didn't have many of those.

She pulled her Glock from her holster, releasing the safety, as she expertly aimed and fired two successive shots.

 _One_.

Right.

After.

The.

 _Other_.

Clint's shocked, quivering face raised itself over the imploded little heads that had collapsed against him. He met her eyes as an empty, vacant look flooded his features. "What…? What... What did you…? No…" His mouth parted in tense, permanent question. "You…" The fate of his children, not quite dawning on him.

But it would. She was _planning on it._

She cocked her head and looked at the massacred family before her feet with little interest. "My message to Steve—this was it." She turned on her heel and walked out of the house.

* * *

Natasha leaned up against the interior, metallic wall of the quinjet, watching the breaking news feed on the holographic screen before her with an apathetic gaze. VIGILANTES ESCAPE FBI. PEPPER POTTS, CEO OF STARK INDUSTRIES, KILLED IN ASSASINATION. CAPTAIN AMERICA, FALCON, AND BLACK WIDOW STILL AT LARGE. The world was blowing up. Social media accounts kept crashing as billions of people, all at once, attempted to piece together what had happened.

She thumbed through her usual networks' channels—the KGB, MI6, MI5, CIA, DGSE, NIC, etc.—but found nothing to be alarming. The world had seen the three of them, but no one had enough intel to know where they were going. It was a blessing and a curse.

She clicked off her Stark tech watch, a gift from Tony, and rested her head against the wall, feeling the engines vibrating beneath her. If Steve had been in 100% 'Dad Mode,' he probably would have scolded her for sitting on the drop door. But since Steve had been sitting in the pilot's chair, more or less, wanly lost in thought for the past two hours, she doubted he would be lecturing her anytime soon on the merits of quinjet etiquette.

Natasha sighed and pulled herself up, walking over to the controls of the quinjet and looking down at where Steve had set the course. Wakanda. She frowned slightly at that, turning to look at Steve. Did this mean he was giving up on Peggy? He wasn't looking at her. His gaze was a million miles away. And while Natasha and Sam had both showered and pulled on casual clothes, Steve was still dressed in full-out combat getup. His suit had seen better days. The red-white-and-blue had begun to fade, while the silver star, patched in the middle of his chest, which usually glittered—even in the dark—had faded. He was a mess. But he would pretend, until he was sputtering for his last breath, that he wasn't. He would keep it together, keep it clean, keep it neat, until it _ate him alive._

She reached out and gently cupped his chin in her palm. She brought her other hand up through his soot-dirt encrusted hair, smoothing it over with a tender wave of her hand. It was as if his soul fell back into his body, his watered-down blue eyes moved up to meet hers. "Nat, I think I'm… I'm beat." He said softly, quietly, sweetly broken, as if he was sad child.

Her heart rattled in her chest, tearing in ten thousand different directions. Because she was _so_ angry. She was pissed. She wanted to strangle him. She wanted him to _burn_ for what he had done to them… For what he had done to Pepper. To Tony. To Sam. To her. He had broken their hearts, thought of nothing but himself. He had acted with disregard. He had _abandoned_ every tactical rationale out in the field, for _Peggy fucking Carter's_ sake… It wasn't fair he got to run around, throwing his shield into every goddamn situation that _he felt_ called for it. And then pretend like none of it was his fault.

But she knew that wasn't what he thought at all.

Steve Rogers blamed himself for everything. And he would never let anything go. Ever.

Which is why, as she stared down at him, full of rage, full of unforgiving asperity that ran _deep_ into her bones, she could not help but bring him against her. She brought his head against her chest, letting him lean against her, allowing him to rest, while he siphoned up all of his faults, all of the faults of the world that did not belong to him, but he would claim them, all the same.

She leaned down and planted a peck on the back of his head. "You need to shower." She chuckled into his ear.

Steve looked up at her with the smallest, _hint_ of a smile. But that was just for her. His eyes were overflowing with doubt, with shame… He would never forgive himself. And a small part of her probably wouldn't forgive him, either.

At that exact moment, she felt her com begin to buzz in her ear from an incoming communication. She pulled herself away from Steve, giving him one final pat on the back, before she glanced down at her watch. Barton. He must have heard about Pepper. She slid her finger across the watch's screen to accept the call.

"Barton?" She asked, her voice somehow sounding _less_ than what it used to be. There was something missing there, something that she used to have, but now was gone.

Steve looked up at her, as he had been staring down at his hands, just in time to see her face drop with a terrible, inconceivable revelation.

"No… No, Clint… No…" Her hand came up to her mouth, to cover her shaking lips.

"No…" She closed her eyes as tears flooded from beneath her eyelids.

Steve felt the world begin to tilt to a crooked, unnatural angle. This was not happening again. No. He felt his entire world was fragile, like anymore of this, and it would all just shatter into thousands of pieces.

He found Natasha's heartbroken eyes met his. "I'm on my way."

 _What had she done_ _now_?

"Clint's entire family, Steve…" Natasha turned away from him, unable to look at him as her voice melted under the weight of such a confession. All the empathy for him draining from her face as the Widow's unforgiving ice settled over her expression."She killed... _All of them!"_ She screamed with an anger that wanted to burn down the entire world. She threw her com system across the room, kicking a ventilator, and slamming a control panel as she walked by.

Sam, who had been in the back barracks, appeared with a confused expression on his face, at the sound of all the shouting. He watched with a worried expression as Natasha typed the coordinates to Barton's farm. Her eyes were weeping tears, Sam wasn't sure she knew she was shedding.

"Nat…" Steve whispered, shaking his head as he rose to his feet.

" _No_ ," Natasha turned sharply to face him as he approached behind her. "No, _Steve_. This isn't about you helping her, anymore, okay? This is…" She shook her head as that look of inexpressible, inconsolable rage burst into an inconsolable, incurable, inexorable sadness. A sob wrecked her body and she shifted her face into her hands.

Sam walked over to her, hesitantly placing an arm around her, pulling her closer to him. But she shoved him violently away, seemingly ignoring the equally violent hurt expression that crossed his face. " _Do you fucking understand what she's done?!_ His _kids... Laura... Their fucking two-year-old, Steve!_ " She screeched at him in a mess of tears, snot, and powerful emotion. Her hands were balled into white-knuckled fists of rage. She sunk to her knees, rattling and quivering with more emotion than she thought she possessed. She looked like some kind of Renaissance painting, in that moment, on her knees, tears bleeding from her eyes, as she looked up into the bright lights above her. It was easy enough to imagine she was hoping this was all some sort of awful nightmare.

Sam was gently whispering something to her and she, not giving any indication that she heard him, took his hand that was offered to her. It looked like the two of them were going to walk out together, but she stopped to say one last thing: "We're past redemption, Steve. _Now, it's just about revenge_." Her face was a wall of entrenched, visceral grief. She sniffed hard and shook her head, turning away from him. She walked out of the room with Sam, leaning against him as if she couldn't walk (and part of Steve knew, she probably couldn't).

Even after he knew she had left, after she had slammed the door of the barracks. He could still hear her screams of disbelief as the news of Barton's family sunk into her brain, as the synapse clicked into place. He would hear them for the rest of his life.

He turned and looked out the dark window of the plane, the clouds covering the moon made the world outside pitch black. He could see the inside of the plane, reflecting back at him through the window pane, but instead of his own face staring back at him, it was Peggy's. She was smiling at him, holding the hand of that _little_ girl with the honeydew curls. She waved at him, a heartbroken, sympathetic expression crossing her face. He felt his own chest burst as a sob exploded from him. He slammed his fist against the wall of the plane, resting his forehead against the glass as he thought of Clint. And Clint's kids. And Clint's wife.

And all the blessings he had ripped away from him

And all the futures he had taken away from him

And all the 'tomorrows' and 'happily ever afters' he had taken from everyone

And all the _shit_ he had done

 _Aren't I worth it, Steven? he heard her voice whisper into his ear Aren't I worth the pain and the blood and the death? All the carnage I've done? Aren't I worth it?_

just because he wanted to save Peggy Carter.

 _All of it was his fault._


	14. Involved

_I have come to see every corner of my life_

Natasha burst through the door of the Barton Farmhouse. She had literally _kicked it in,_ as the hinges barely hung in place from the force of her hit. She didn't know what she expected; chaos, war, insanity, but it was quiet, dark, and the blinds had been drawn. She walked through the living room, her hands shaking, her heart pounding, and her eyes zeroing in on every misplaced detail of the room. She would have preferred the house had been in disarray: a mess, disfigured, dysfunctional. If it had been a mess, at least then there would have been proof of a fight. But that wasn't the case because everything was intact. Everything was neat, orderly, homely—just as Laura liked it.

She came to the corner of the room, the one that wrapped around the main frame of the house and led into the narrow hallway between the study and the kids' playroom. _I have come to see every corner of my life_ And that's when she saw it—a swamp of blood and bodily liquids. Her heart dove straight down into the pit of her stomach, as she felt vomit begin to percolate there. The blood was everywhere, sprayed across the warm yellow walls, splattered across the floor, and seeping into the cracks of the floor boards. Her hands shakily raised to her lips to cover them as tears formed in her eyes.

 _Barton_. _How could she do this to you…_

A small stuffed-bunny lay in the swampy, congealing liquid. Its face was half crusted-over with thick, slimy crimson coating, while the other half looked helplessly out of its shiny, bright glass eye. Natasha could have almost imagined it drown in all that blood. She had given Lila that bunny for her fourth birthday—a bright and happy day, years back, and years away from that moment. _Aunt Nat, I'm going to name her Natasha just like you!_ She heard the echo of the little girl's voice ringing in her ears as she blinked hard and picked up the little bunny, holding it tightly in her hand. _Name her something better, honey, Natasha's not that great._ Natasha had told her with a small, yet rueful smile cupping the edge of her lips. _But there's no one better than you, Aunt Nat…_

 _No one better than me_. Natasha felt a tear streak down her cheek. If there was no one better than her, then how could she not have seen this coming? How could she not have been able to protect these people she had come to see as her _own_ family? She tucked the bunny to her belt and looked up as she heard the squeak of floorboards behind her. Sam and Steve had finally caught up to her. She had raced out of the aircraft, leaping out of the quinjet before it had even touched the ground. Part of her rationed that neither of them wanted to see the blood of Barton's family, splattered about the house like it was from a pipe bust, rather than a massacre. She hadn't wanted to either. But she had—she did—love these people. They were precious to Clint, precious to her, and that meant she would descend into the carnage… For him. For his _family_.

"Jesus Christ…" Sam whispered as he saw Natasha standing in a sticky puddle of blood. Shock carved itself into his features, but it was a shock that wasn't _unknown_. She knew he had seen his friends burst into skin, blood, and intestines before his eyes when he was in Iraq. Perhaps he simply had never expected to see it on such sacred, wholesome ground. She glanced at Steve, but of course, he had turned himself away, his back—broad and steady—faced her, as he was unable to look, unable to confront what Peggy had been the cause of.

But the truth was Steve couldn't look because he, too, was reminded of things that he could not change. Natasha thought it was because he was weak, but he remembered the 'kill rooms' as the Nazis had called them. After he, the Howling Commandos, and a large group of the Soviets had invaded Majdanek in July of 1944, he remembered those rooms… They were sickishly green, square, and had tiled floor like they had once been showers, but the blood… The blood, years and years' worth of Jewish blood, was dried there…. Black and peeling in thick layers.

When he saw that blood, he felt something sick and inhuman shift within himself. That blood had been shed in fear, in violence, in terror like innocent Jews had been slaughtered meat. And the corpses that had been stacked outside on top of one another in droves… Blown apart from guns much too powerful to use on human flesh.

And when he saw the blood of Barton's children, of Barton's wife, all mushed and sticky like black forest jelly. He saw the images of those tiny children in Majdanek—and now, Barton's kids—frozen in those skinny, malnourished corpses, stacked against a building like they were fire wood. He felt as if he could fall over in the heavy, heavy burden of all the people he had failed. He wanted the souls of all those little children to descend upon him and choose the punishment they saw fit—tearing apart his flesh, disembodying him as if he was a damned man who had signed a pact with the devil. Because he had failed them. He had failed them all.

"Where is he?" Steve asked, turning his head only slightly to look at her from his peripheral vision. "Where's Barton?"

Natasha turned away from them, not bearing to look for too long. She didn't care about them. Not now. And maybe, in the face of this travesty, she hadn't ever cared about them. Because death was just too full, too encompassing, to try and pretend like anything else had ever mattered. She walked past her friends, coldly dismissing what Steve had asked. He wasn't here. He wasn't in the house. She knew there was only one place he could be.

She walked back through the living room and to the backdoor where she slid it open to reveal the wide-open fields behind Barton's house. The sunrise—bloody and angry, a crimson red sky to match the carnage of the hallway within the house—was just beginning to expand across the dark sky. If it had been any other time, perhaps Natasha would have stopped and looked at it—a juxtaposition of red and black, meeting one another in the middle of the horizon. But she didn't care, not in light of what had happened, and it was all she could do not to allow herself to be sucked into the merciless, overwhelming sense of numbness that was eating her inside.

As that's what she would have done, years before, when she was a Black Widow, when she was a spy, an assassin. When Alexi, Yelena, and her, hid from the rage of their superiors, she flipped a switch within herself, and pretended like she couldn't feel the pulsing, raging emotions pounding against her heart. But now, she couldn't afford to be numb. The Widow—a graceful, useful, yet soulless creature of survival—had to _feel_. So, when she looked up into that blood-red sky and she felt nothing, she simply turned her head, and continued down the stairs onto the soft fertile ground. Barton needed her, she couldn't afford to be selfish.

 _I have come to see every corner of my life_ The early morning March air blew a harsh wind that ripped across her skin, fresh as it was frigid, reminded her that she was here, in this very real, very hollow place. On any other March day, Barton would have been out at the peak of the mornings, checking the soil and figuring out which of his fields he could use for the growing season ahead. But now this home, while the buildings still stood and the fields still remained empty and ready for the growing season, held no future for crops or living or breathing or dying. She knew nothing was left here. It was barren, empty, and severed of meaning and life.

It wasn't until she began walking across the ground, following the long-beaten trail from the house to the far field, that she realized her breathing was jagged and each breath felt like a thousand knives being thrown into her lungs. _I have come to see every corner of my life_ She wasn't wearing a jacket. It had been 80 degrees in D.C. Now, in Virginia, in the early spring air—it was 35. She still felt like she could break out into a sweat at any moment—she was clammy, scared, and not knowing what to expect when she found Barton.

 _What could I possibly say?_ The thought crossed her mind, shaking her, and causing her stop in her tracks for a moment. _I have come to see every corner of my life_ And she wished that the ground would swallow her up, pulling her down into the under roots of the earth, and keep her there forever, where she would never have to resurface. She wished, for the second time in the past 48 hours—that it had been her _,_ who perished on an operating table or shot through the heart, bleeding out over Barton's walls and into the cracks of floor _._

 _I wish that I could die for you._ She had once told Barton—drunk and upset over the death of another SHIELD agent. He had shaken his head and told her to shut the fuck up. She had insisted. He got up and walked over to her, grabbing her face with his hands, and told her to never, _ever_ insist that he would want that from her. But despite the digression, that is what Natasha wanted, she was raised to die for a mission, die for a cause, die for SHIELD, but if she had to _choose_ to die for someone… Well, there wouldn't have been question as to who that would've been.

She still hadn't moved, frozen in fear over the man she would see. She could remember his voice over her coms: _They're dead, Tash… They're all dead…_ A raspy, ghostly whisper as if he was conjuring some evil spirit. She saw him, in her head as he spoke, standing over four bodies: a baby, a little girl, a little boy, and a woman. She realized, in that moment, she was afraid because this was a new Barton. A Barton she didn't know or understand or speak the language of or know the complexities of his heart. Because losing one's own family, all in one swoop, could have not been anything less than losing one's own soul.

But he needed her.

He could _not_ be alone.

Not now.

She swallowed, looked upwards into the black and red sky, took a moment to breathe, and then continued walking.

 _I have come to see every corner of my life_ She came to the corner of the big red barn where Barton housed his ancient tractor and farm equipment. She had stayed there, for a month or two, in the shaft of that barn, sleeping on hay bales and doing menial labor around the house for Clint and Laura after Ultron. She probably still had a secret stash of vodka up there. She'd have to remember that for later.

And as she came around the bend of the massive barn, _I have come to see every corner of my life_ browning with age and lack of paint, she saw _him_. He was standing over two brown mounds of dirt, both fresh, both new, and both perfectly even with one another. He had done it right. He had measured them to the last degree. He had been a mess, but she knew he couldn't have allowed it to be anything less than perfect. The sky—which had been massive and transcendent with stars the last time she was here—seemed to shrink above him. The long-stretching fields around him, seemed to be swallowed in indescribable silence. The world was small and Barton, in his great sadness, was looming over it.

She came to stand, maybe ten feet away from him, facing him, and not even daring herself to look at the homemade graves. Her lips pressed into a fine line as she watched him. He was shrunken, zombified; looking hardly like the Clint Barton she knew. His shirt was pasted to his body in dried blood and his arms were coated with dark, brown stains of blood and dirt, but his _hands_ … _I have come to see every corner of my life_ His hands, shaking as if plagued by Parkinson's, were holding a shovel tightly to his chest. Even at this distance, she could see that caked, beneath his chipped and broken fingernails, was compacted blood and dirt. She figured he had tried to dig the graves himself. She could even imagine him with his fingers raggedly digging into the earth, while he was bent and hollowed-over like a rotting tree, desperately trying to do the _one last thing he could do right_.

She knew him. She knew he had wanted to do it himself.

Clint wasn't religious. He wasn't an atheist either, rather, he believed in the spirituality of the people he loved. _Mother Theresa saw the face of Christ in every person she met._ He had told her once, and he believed in that. He didn't believe in a higher God, he believed in a God that lived within people, within their hope, within their love… And that's why he always said the same prayer before they went in, before he took the shot, before he laid down to go to sleep at night… Before he did anything, he said a short, invaluable line of prayer: _Blessed be to you._ It had been for his kids. He did everything for those goddamn kids.

Now, he just kept saying it, whispering it in passionate fury. _Over and over and over and over and over again._ "Blessed be to you… blessed be to you…" His speech was quavering, soft, and silent, as if speaking too loud would disrupt the mantra. And she wouldn't dare interrupt his final words, his final moments with these people that he would never see again.

Until finally, after what felt like hours to Natasha, he misspoke, he tripped over a 'b' or an 's' in 'blessed.' But once he did, once his tongue tripped over that word, she heard a soft heartbroken, choked noise that sounded like something caught in his throat that he couldn't dislodge. He couldn't right the words. He couldn't save his family. _He didn't save his family…_

He fell to his knees, the shovel dropping from his hands, and he collapsed to the ground, unmoving, not making a sound.

Then, and only then, did Natasha run to him. She fell beside him and grabbed him up into her arms, pulling him against her, cradling him, as if she held something precious and breakable within her grasp. Clint's head came to rest against her chest, as his eyes—bloodshot and blind with a profound, grieving sense of something lost—met hers.

"Tash…" He whispered. _I have come to see every corner in my life_ "I d-didn't want N-Nate to be alone and I k-knew Laura wouldn't want him to be alone…" He quivered in her arms as silent tears rolled in solemn agony down her face and onto his. They splashed onto his own cheeks, but it was as if he didn't even notice. "S-so I put them t-together…" His breath was sharp, ragged, and misguided, as if his lungs no longer fit within his body. "A-And Lila and Coop… They had to be together because C-Coop would want to be with his s-sister… I didn't want them to be alone." He stopped speaking as his face, broke into tangible, touchable emotion, his eyes swelling, overflowing, blanketing in tears. " _I'm alone."_

His face broke open and something within him burst forward, as his tears boiled over his eyes and coasted down his cheeks with abandon, wild and uncouth abandon. He was exploding, this man in her arms. Exploding like a dying star, containing a multitude of worlds within his flesh, within his heart, within his _soul_. His children—parts of him, parts of Laura, but something magically their own—became _him_ in some way. They had encompassed all that he was: "Dad." He learned how to love from his children because he hadn't ever really loved before them. No, it was in loving his children, in loving all of their idiosyncrasies, in watching them grow into something he couldn't control…but knowing, it was so much better than whatever he and Laura were… He exploded with the grief of this and thousands of pieces and parts of his kids, of his _babies_ flowing over his life, interweaving themselves into his daily routine… A daily routine of homework, dinner, working, chores, bed time stories, walks in the fields, tiny, soft hands grabbing onto his calloused fingers, giggling behind a closed door, a dog chasing after a wildly amused little girl, a soft cool kiss in the early hours of the morning, a wedding band sliding over his finger in a church, fucking, dancing in the rain, swinging Cooper over his shoulder, living a life to be lived… And now, they were simply gone, his life a mess of what they had left when they bled out in his arms.

And the more he cried, the tighter he held to Natasha, pulling himself up against her as he leaned into her embrace. They entangled themselves into one another, her legs wrapping around him, and his arms coming to enclose themselves all the way around her as they fell onto the dry, dusty ground, holding and needing each other to be close. It was as if they were creating something, an entirely different world within themselves, as the outside—the place outside of each other's arms—would go on, but if they could just keep hanging onto one another, perhaps Clint could forget, for a moment, that his children would never grow old.

"They're gone…" He whimpered in her ear, begging it not to be true.

But knowing all along that it was.

 _I have come to see every corner of my life as the promise of something new and gloriously unspoken._

* * *

Sam watched Natasha and Clint from the back porch with a seriously conflicted look on his face. He leaned against the post of the house, not really sure what to do with himself. He hated everything. He hated himself the most. He felt the black abysmal pit that was ripping open in his stomach—the same one that swallowed Riley, the same one that nearly swallowed him—twist in hunger for something. He wanted a drink. He wanted to get high. He wanted to be home.

But they were so fucking far from home.

Now it was a war.

Because now there were bodies.

Now, there was blood.

But now he was here. And Natasha was here. And he was involved.

 _Fucking_. Involved.

He fucking hated everything.

He slammed his fist against the wall of the house, bending down quickly like he was about to fall over, but caught himself with his fingers on the edge of the porch.

His grandma used to paint birdlime over the branches of the sycamore trees in her backyard to catch blue jays. They would land in it, get their feet stuck within the thick, cement-like substance, and work themselves into a frenzy in trying to escape. Eventually, they'd fall over, hanging upside down, stiff and cold. He remembered he wanted to save them. _Samuel Thomas, sit yo' blackass down and listen to me, all those birds do is cause a goddamn grievance. They bully, they pester, and they eat the other birds' food. Lettin' em' starve in those trees is a kindness._

Growing up, he never questioned his gram. If those birds were bad for business, then they were bad for business. But then he met Riley—a white, silver-spoon-up-his-ass kind of boy—but nevertheless, he _was_ his wingman. And they were both chosen as the elite paratroopers known as the EXO-7 Falcons. They trained, they learned, and they grew up together. And the more he got to know Riley, the more he realized what a pain in the ass he was. He was a mess—that guy, he did things for stupid reasons, said the wrong thing (a lot), but he had a good heart… Good, warm, and _vibrant_ intention. Then he died. In front of Sam's eyes—he exploded into a matter of hellfire, raining down onto the desert in bits and pieces of flesh and ash. Sam had wanted something to bring home with him of Riley's, but there was nothing left.

At Riley's memorial back in the States, Sam doubted there wasn't much else left to learn about Riley. But he was wrong. Because suddenly, he was immersed in Riley's world, with the people that knew him so well: his fiancé, his parents, and his sister all started making jokes about how he had a habit, when he was little, of saying a 'th' instead of the 'f' in 'fish' or 'wolf,' or how he came out to his dad in that naturally fearless, yet resilient way of his: "Who I love, Dad—that's for me to decide." And he realized, a bit late, those blue jays—they were just doin' what they did. It was stupid to kill em' for something they couldn't control.

Because, after Riley, Sam realized that that was just life. Getting involved, getting your feet stuck in shit that you didn't mean to get stuck in, and then trying to figure out whether it was better to fight it or just die being stuck in it. Sam questioned if there was even a way to escape, once you were in it. Those birds never found a way. So, after Riley and his funeral, after the war and the bombs and the flames and the chaos, he just decided to let it happen. To be _involved._ As you couldn't really fight what you just got caught up in.

By the time Steve—the 'runnin' man'—Rogers ran past him that morning as they "raced" (that was putting it loosely) around the Washington Monument, he was used to people running into his life. And he could tell this white boy needed a friend. Somebody to help him, to guide him, as he got his feet stuck in all this 21st Century bullshit. He could see he was lost, had those "kicked puppy" vibes, and even a little bit lonely. He was like all those blue jays—just needed a little nudge in the right direction to help him go forward. Sam knew he was the guy for the job, so he stuck by Cap; put back on the wings, and said: "I do what he does, only slower." And when the tabloids called him Cap's 'sidekick,' he only laughed, not even taking it to heart. Yeah, Cap was the man with the plan, alright, but when it came to real life and trying to figure out where to put his feet, Steve sucked at that.

Because the world, for a long time, didn't get what Sam, Natasha, Tony, and Bruce all saw in Steve: he was an _old_ _man_. He was a thirty-something-year-old guy from 1945, stuck in a world he didn't understand. And that was enough to age anybody overnight. It wasn't just that he had veterans' shock like he was returning home from Iraq after a few tours, the guy was coming home to a world that was 70 years older, undone and unstable, a place where life was _war_. Murder-suicides in the streets, school shootings every other week, men out here not asking when they wanted somethin' from a lady… It was no wonder they all decided to try and protect Steve Rogers. Because, Jesus Christ, unless you grew up and came to see the fucked-up world outside your window as normal, he couldn't have imagined how Steve saw it.

And he was a _black_ _kid_ from Harlem. How the fuck did white boy, "American Dream" Steve feel?

But all that protection, all of them trying to help him shape the world in the way he needed to see it… Well, Peggy had done a pretty god job of fucking that to shit. He sighed and brought himself to a squat, holding his tired face in his hands.

Those poor kids.

Why the kids?

Why did they _always_ go for the kids? What did the kids have to do with _anything_?

When he was in Iraq, just outside of Baghdad, him and Riley were told to fly in to check out an abandoned depot. They had gotten reports through the wire that Al-Qaida had a 'secret' base—but using 'Al-Qaida' and 'secret' in the same sentence is kind of moot, considering those boys liked to talk a lot of shit. When Riley and Sam landed, they found the place was pretty empty, except for a little girl, who was crying on the steps of this blown-to-shit building.

 _Madha yajri ealaa , raye?_ Riley had asked her, which caused Sam to smile a bit at his buddy's fluent use of Arabic. The little girl, sad-eyed and malnourished, and obviously, terrified of American soldiers, backed further into the corner of the building. _Nahn lasna huna li'iidhayik._ Riley added as he bent down and offered a hand to her, gesturing for her to come to him.

The little girl, watching Riley's hand warily, scooted closer to him. She was wearing, as is per usual to Islamic culture, a hijab which loosely wrapped around her face and a dirty, torn abaya. But when she got closer, Sam realized—with a sick, choking discomfort settling into his stomach—why she had been wary to approach. Wrapped around her chest, hidden by the skirts of her abaya, was a _bomb._ A Classic suicide-bomb. She was cradling the kill-switch in her little hand. And while she didn't seem too excited about blowing the whole place to shit, as she was shaking in death-cold fear, all Sam could do was stare.

And while he had locked up in fear, Riley bent down and opened his arms to her. _You don't have to hurt us, gorgeous._ He spoke to her in Arabic, but basic-enough that Sam could understand. _We can help you._ He said softy, succinctly, not letting her know how scared he was. Sam wouldn't have thought Riley was scared, had it not been for the insane clench of his back. Even underneath all that combat gear, Sam could still make out the intensity of the tension he held there. _We have people who know how to take that thing off of ya', sweetheart._

Still, the little girl hung back, her breath panicked and trembling with dissention. It was as if her body was rejecting her desire to take a breath, to _calm_ herself. _What's your name?_ Riley had asked gently, soothingly.

She looked up at Sam, begging him to do something. He didn't know what to do. _Zaina._ She had whispered to Riley, with her eyes still on Sam. _Zaina—can you look at me?_ She brought her bright, rattled gaze to meet Riley's as he asked her, clear as day: _Do you want to kill us?_

Zaina, with her little face wide and aware of the total consequence of her actions, crumpled against the enormity of his question. And that's when Sam knew that Riley didn't get it. She didn't want to kill anybody. Just looking at Zaina was proof she didn't fucking want anything to do with this bullshit. But she was _involved_. And that meant everything. Because somebody, somewhere up above her and her family, made sure that when American paratroopers landed, she'd be there to blow em' to shit.

An innocent little girl, a remedial device to "get the job done."

And when it came down to it, it was always the kids that suffered the most out of everybody. Zaina hadn't didn't ask for this. Barton's kids didn't ask for _this_. But no one asked to get involved…it just happened…and when it did, you were like a blue jay stuck in birdlime; trying to free yourself from something you couldn't fight. Not after a while. Not ever.

* * *

Steve had been staring down at a picture he found of Barton's family in Laura's study. There were art easels propped up in a corner, a handful of skilled watercolors sat, gathering dust, beside them. There was another easel set up near the back window with a half-finished watercolor done of a bird. With a plopping sense of dread, Steve realized, Laura had been an artist.

"A painter—like you, I see."He turned sharply around to see Peggy standing there. She was dressed in a coral, chiffon dress, all done up for something nice she must have had planned for later. Her lips were bright and victoriously red as she smiled at him from the corner of the room.

Steve's eyes narrowed at sharply. "You're not really here, are you?"

"Mmmm that's a matter of circumstance. I _was_ here and so were _you_." She walked over to stand beside him, placing a coy hand on bicep. He fully expected to feel the cold, empty touch of her fingers—like he had in all his visions of her—but instead, he _felt_ her. He felt her warmth—the blood, the flesh, the _life_ in her fingers. The portrait of Barton's family dropped out of his hand and shattered onto the floor, before he twisted out of her grasp. A shocked, disbelieving look cast itself across his face.

And when he did, he was no longer standing in Laura's study in 2018, he was at an Italian oligarch's mansion more than half a century ago, standing in a ball room, watching Peggy—in that bright, coral dress—flirt amongst Italian muckety-mucks fluently spouting the provincial dialect with ease.

"It would be fun, she _said_. It will be a quick mission, she _said._ " Bucky appeared at Steve's side, holding a glass of glittering champagne, and dressed in a suit that Steve wanted to… He wouldn't think about that right now. He was too confused—what the hell was going on? "You know what this whole party has been—a steamin' pile of batshit."

 _Right._ He had could remember Bucky saying that. He could remember his distaste at Peggy's antics. He could remember that happened… _right_? Wait. Of course, he knew this place. This was the party that Peggy had gotten them into because… Yeah, him, Bucky, and Peggy, they were all here because… No, it had been _because_ …

"Stevie, you okay?" Bucky had leaned over to whisper in his ear, his hand gently coming to rest on the small of his back. "You look like you just got a case of the jitters, pal."

Was he okay? He turned to look at Buck with a confused look on his face. "When did we get here?"

Bucky frowned instantly at his question. He swallowed. "Steve, we've been stationed here for a week. Remember—Peggy got us into this mess because—"

"Because I needed you two to cause a distraction." Peggy had seemingly appeared in front of them. Hands-on-hips, head cocked to the side, her bright brown eyes narrowing in on Bucky's face with a snarky smile. She gently reached out and touched his face with a tenderness taking hold of her face. "You know what's about to happen, Steve." She said suddenly, her head turning to look at Cap.

"C'mon, Peg—you said not til' after he had a few drinks." Bucky said teasingly with a wholesome grin coming to his face as he looked at her. The way the two of them talked to each other… Why was she…? _What was going on?_ Steve looked between the two of them, panic beginning to rise in his chest. Something was _wrong._ This wasn't how this was supposed to go. He knew this wasn't what he remembered. _Something was wrong._

"Peg…? What are you…?" He felt his panic begin to swell, as he realized—to his terror—the people around him, began to drop over, M16 bullet-sized holes through varying parts of their bodies. The whole mansion began to fall apart as walls came crumbling down, the floor erupting into fire that began to consume the furniture, the dining tables; the entirety of everything was on fire and everything was suddenly chaos.

Peggy was still smiling at Bucky—the two of them laughing at some hilarious thing she must have said. Steve couldn't reach either of them through the flames. But then he saw it—the knife in Peggy's hand. _No. "PEGGY, NO—put down the knife! PUT. IT. DOWN."_

"You know she won't." He turned sharply to see a little girl standing there. Lila. Barton's kid. She was holding a stuffed bunny and standing in a small circle of flame.

He felt a lump swell in his throat as he shook his head at the sight of the little girl, his lips shaking with a 'sorry' upon his tongue, but he couldn't look at her too long because— _BUCKY._ He turned abruptly back to the scene in front of him—Peggy was raising the knife, lowering it as if she was going to—

And the scene changed again. Suddenly, he was back in 1942, standing over a flaming boiler room, where he and Bucky were separated across a cavern of hot, molten fire. Before he even realized, he was screaming at Buck: _"Go—get out of here!"_

But Bucky wasn't there on the other side, looking at him, he was with Peggy—still dressed in his suit, Peggy holding his face in her hands. She whispered something to him and he chuckled, before he began to lean down to…the knife…a kiss… _NO. bucky NOOOOOOOOOO_

he couldn't tell if he was screaming or if he was just screaming he couldn't tell

BUCKY NO NOOOOO _he was crying, slamming his fist into the railing, desperately trying to claw himself over to him_

 _the knife_

 _the kiss between the two of them_

 _she was raising the knife_

 _he was kissing her_

 _NO BUCKKKYYYY NO_

"You know she won't." A little girl told him, a little girl he had killed. She stood in a desert. She was holding the hand of a woman, dressed in white. Her name was Laura, her name was Lila.

 _he was kissing her, you know she won't, but I can stop her, you know she won't I CAN STOP HER_

"Steve, the war's over." Peggy said to him, from somewhere, a long time ago. She was beside him now, holding up the corpse of Bucky Barnes. She had sliced through the middle of his chest, opening up his entire heart with a red 'X.'

He fell

To

 _His knees_

 _PEGGY NOOOOOOOOO – NOOO NOOOOOOO he fell into the dry, desert sand, gathering the remains of Bucky into his arms YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME, BUCKY—DON'T… DON'T… DON'T…_

"If you knew she wouldn't, why did you let her?" Lila asked him with a small, sad smile on her face.

Steve turned to look at that little girl, that little girl he had taken everything away from and looked her in the eyes, holding the remains, the body of _his_ _beating_ _heart_ in his arms. _"Because I thought I could save her."_

When Steve blinked again, he realized he was standing in Laura Barton's study—not in a desert, or a steam room, or an Italian mansion. He was here, in this terrible place, which was somehow worse for the mere fact that he had _created_ this one.

* * *

Sam sighed and brought his face up out of his hands to look at Natasha and Clint, clinging to each other out in the field. He just wanted to go the fuck home. He wanted to lay on his couch and go to sleep.

He hated Steve.

He hated Natasha.

He hated Peggy Carter for doing this—for making Steve into a fucking lunatic. It's like she knew that he would come after her. If she hadn't wanted to be found, why make it so easy for him to chase her down? He didn't know. He didn't care. He just wanted to leave and go home and sleep for sixty years.

Looking up from his position on the porch, he noticed a raised ledge that lined the perimeter of the fields surrounding Bartons' farm. Trees, foliage, and thick forestry grew over the edge, but it was clear Barton had cut it back, so as to prevent it from growing outwards into his fields. In an opening, a small dark gap between the trees, he noticed someone standing there. A woman, dressed in a white wife-beater and camo pants, watching the farm below her. He frowned and rose to his feet, narrowing his eyes to try and get a better look. And when he realized who it was, he felt everything in his body begin to scream.

" _STEVE."_ He shouted into the house to alert his friend, but he was already running, sprinting across the fields to the forest. He would catch this woman, and for all he cared, he'd make sure she'd spend the rest of her life rotting in a psychiatric ward. He was past sympathy, he was past everything, now he just wanted her to feel what it felt like to be _involved._


	15. Comeuppance

**JANUARY 2011**

M16 stood in front of the tall French window of the hotel room. A sheet was draped around her as she reached out and placed a hand to the glass, her hair—long and undone rolled off of her back like the wild bunching of a mane. Her forehead was wrinkled as she stared off into the distance with a focus on something far beyond what was before her. Beneath her hotel window, the city of Paris was just beginning to stir as the early morning sky gave way to gentle pinks and oranges of dawn. Cars were beginning to circle the building, people were beginning to leave their luxury apartments—after all, anyone staying in this part of town had money. It was all very functional like a clock beginning to wind up.

She could only assume that with the assassination of Ambassador Jacques Dubois that this functionality was temporary. Functionality was always temporary. Especially in the times of silence before the crisis. France would have to slap together a makeshift decision and just as HYDRA had hoped, settle with the more 'autocratic' political candidate. France's new president was meant to be an easily persuadable man—bred from high aristocracy, groomed by "proper" neo-Nazis, and meant to be a shoo-in for HYDRA. It was the perfect plan, really. She sighed and rested her forehead against the window, her eyes coming to a close.

It was only _five_ in the bloody morning. She only needed a couple hours of sleep on HYDRA's schedule. On the other hand, on the bed behind her, Emi—or Sinthea, she supposed—lay stretched out amongst the lavish pillows and blankets strewn across the bed. She lay on her stomach with an arm slipped over the edge, her soft features, usually taut with sharp passivity, were spread apart in her sleep. Emi once told her that she didn't sleep for a period of five weeks during the Cold War.

 _When I finally closed my eyes that final night—the night I went to bed—I knew I had reached a new level of some kind… I realized I didn't dream anymore._ 16 came to sit beside her nighttime partner, gently pushing a piece of hair out of her face. Emi's eyes snapped open before 16's fingers even left the side of her face. She grabbed 16's arm in midair, her kaleidoscope eyes narrowing in on hers as they sharply came into focus. _And when you don't dream, you come to see that there's no color left within you._ 16 didn't even flinch as the other woman held her arm in a death grip, and instead, reached out and gently pried her fingers off of her.

"Emilie." She said softly, trying to calm her. "It's me. I-It's… It's Carter." _Dreaming is for those lucky enough to sleep. Lucky enough to be awake._

Emi swallowed and watched her suspiciously as if she didn't trust the image of the woman before her. She pulled herself up, but warily watched 16 from across the bed. Her chest was glossy from perspiration, while her eyes had mirrored evenly into an uneasy, unrested, unkempt green. Her hair, which she usually kept as a tight buzz, was finally beginning to grow back in shaggy, uneven bunches. She grabbed at her pale auburn hair, pulling it back away from her face and resting her elbow atop her knee. Her eyes came to rest on 16's with an oddly unsettled glimmer. If the older woman didn't know better, she'd say Emi was confused.

No, confused was the wrong word—Emilie was bloody frightened.

"Darling, what's the matter?" 16 asked matter-of-factly as she allowed her lovely Kensington accent to seep into her voice as she addressed her.

Emi cocked her head and seemed to finally _see_ her friend sitting across from her. She pulled her arm away from her hair and wrapped both arms around her body as if self-conscious. Her corded, strong molds of muscle and bone rippled beneath her skin as she moved. "W-What happened last night, Carter?" Her voice was weak, raspy.

"You mean you don't remember?" M16 suggestively offered her a smirk. "I'm offended."

Emi's eyes widened as some vital piece of information clicked into place. "No… I… Of course, I…" And for the first time—in all of 16's memory—she saw color blazing, brilliant and utterly beat-red flame up in Emilie's cheeks. It was as if she was a newborn babe taking her first breath. Feeling her _first_ wave of shame.

"I would hope. I don't do _that_ for just anyone." 16 said softly, moving her eyes up from beneath her eyelashes to meet Emi's.

And Emi, still nervous and still delightfully cherry-red in utter embarrassment, cracked a smile and began to laugh. Not the sad, yet hysterical laughter of last night, but joyful, highly-amused laughter. A laugh that freed itself from something deep and burrowed beneath the surface. Catharsis was the only word 16 could think to describe it.

"Oi, you think this is funny?" 16—no, _not_ M16—but another part of herself, began to laugh with her. She crawled closer to Emilie, pinning her down onto the bed, causing the girl to laugh even harder.

"No… No… It's just…" She turned her head to look out the window as a tear had rolled down her cheek in her fit of amusement. "No, it's just I haven't had sex in 70 years, Peg."

 _Peggy_ instantly unpinned her friend and sat straight up, looking at Emilie with unmasked shock. "You— _what?_ Emilie, you have had more sex than—"

" _With_ men."

Peggy's shock melted from her face as a single chuckle burst out of her like a comet, before an entire cascade of hysterical laughter ripped from her. She fell up against Emi, laughing into her collarbone. "How have you bloody managed?" She asked her through her own laughter.

"Oh," Emilie, in the meantime, had also begun to laugh once more, "just barely."

Peggy rolled over to the other pillow so her and Emi were looking at one another. Both of their faces mere inches apart, both of them naked as babes, both of them crying over their own amusement. Until, Peggy realized, she wasn't crying out of laughter anymore. She was simply crying. Tears, silent and heavy, fell down her cheeks and stained the side of her pillow. She pulled herself up and wiped the tears away—Emi had fallen silent at the sight of them and the room had descended into total, annihilating silence.

"Carter…" Emi said softly from the pillow.

Peggy—or what was left of her—couldn't seem to stop the tears running down her cheeks. She supposed some of it had to do with residual emotion—joy led to emotion, emotion led to arousal, arousal led to more emotion. She knew psychological reactions were necessary and needed, but she had thought all the emotion had drained out of her years ago. She didn't respond to Emi for fear her voice had all but lost its ability to hide her emotion as well.

" _Peg_." Emi was now sitting up, beside her, turning her face to look into her dazzling, colorful eyes. "What is it?"

"Everything." She said softly, her face collapsing within itself. "Everything is wrong." She bit her lip and twisted her head out of Emi's grasp, pulling herself out of bed.

* * *

Steve charged into the darkened folds of the forest, racing around the corner of the trail after the way Sam and Peggy had ran. His vibranium Wakanda-made shield glinted dimly in the early morning light as he ran through breaks of sunlight seeping in through the trees. He could hear Sam and Peggy racing after one another up ahead. _She isn't who you thought she was._ Bucky's words ricocheted around his brain like splattered, chaotic paintball bullets being rapidly fired all at once. His breath was barely breaking free from his lungs and every hollowed, cornered gasp he took felt like insufficient fire licking his internal organs.

 _Jesus Christ_ —he realized—he was hyperventilating…when was the last time that had happened? _Don't get sloppy, darling._ He could hear her voice in his ear. _Get sloppy and you die._ He tripped over a boulder that hadn't been there a minute ago— _I can right myself I can–_ he was falling– _NO, I CAN GET UP_ –he was falling over the boulder, falling to the ground— _hands, I can use my hands–_ hands reaching out to stop his fall, to steady himself to—

And that's when he heard Sam scream. Blood curdling, blood bursting, head exploding, heart pounding _screaming_.

He ripped himself off the ground and ran _faster,_ he ran as if the world was on fire… And he supposed in some ways, it was. _Sam. Have. To. Get. To. Sam._ He leaped over a log while a tree branch slapped against the side of his face. His uniform snagged on the dead underbrush around him as he found himself running into the sludgy water of a half-frozen creek. Sam's screaming had gone silent. He tried not to think about that meant, but of course, he did anyway. _Don't look at me—I do what he does, only slower._ Sam "I do what he does, only slower" Wilson. _You gotta be sure, if we do this, this girl of yours is worth all the hurt it's gonna take to bring her in._ Sam "you gotta be sure" Wilson. _You expect the whole damn world of people._ Sam "I expect nothing" Wilson. _Stevie, we have to be better—the world needs to be_ better. Sam "we have to do better" _Wilson._ He tripped into the creek. Face first. Mud and ice pushing itself up into his nostrils. His front tooth hit a river rock at the bottom. He tasted the blood and he knew, when his tongue crashed into the soft gum there, a chunk of tooth was missing.

 _NOOOO GET. UP. STEVE. STAND. UP._

Steve pulled himself up out of the water, steam rising off of his body due to his core temperature being 60 degrees warmer than the actual air around him. He righted his shield and took a shaky breath, trying to calm himself. His heart was _pounding, exploding, wracking_ his body with sound. _Think, Steve, think_. Peggy had suddenly come to stand beside him—not the _real_ Peggy—but the Peggy inside his head. _Focus on the sound of their movements—where is Sergeant Wilson?_ Steve took an uneasy breath, closed his eyes, and listened for a split second for the minute vibrations of movement Peg was talking about.

 _THUMP._ The sound of something hitting the ground. A fist. A head. A body… He tried not to think about it. Instead, his eyes snapped open and he turned sharply in the direction of the noise. Leaping out of the water, he raced northwards through the trees.

A thicket came up ahead, a grove of dead trees bunched together to form a twisted nest of sorts composed of broken and gnarled branches. He punched through the vines and brambles, coming to a stop at the sight of Samslumped against the half-frozen ground. He was softly moaning in pain as a large, ugly gash ran down the side of his face. He was mumbling under his breath nonsensically: "Have to… Not… The kids… _Steve…"_ Steve ran over to him as he slid his shield onto its rightful place on the back of his worn uniform.

"Sam, hey, man… Sammy… We gotta… We gotta get you out of here, man." He slid his arm underneath Sam's and noticed his friend's leg had been torn to shit. Steve wasn't one to gag at flesh wounds—they were a commonality a soldier had to come to acknowledge as part of war, but this… This was something else. It was almost like the skin had been pulled back, scraped apart and severed in _layers_. Peggy hadn't just split the skin, she had _fileted_ it. Steve swallowed hard at the sight, moving his eyes away from the wound and up to Sam's beaten and dazed face, a sympathetic expression crossed his features. "Okay, man, c'mon…" He was about to move him, when he heard a sound, a _snapping_ noise behind him.

Steve turned and—as if caught up in a slow-motion reel of film—s _he_ floated downwards from the sky, arms outstretched like some great prophet receiving the Word of God. _For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him._ At the sight of her, Steve remembered the Colossians verse of God's power of creation. He remembered the fear he felt upon hearing it. _He remembered that verse and he remembered the stark, cold fear._ Because watching her, that taciturn, lifeless face of the woman he had once loved, the face of the woman he had once _cherished,_ he remembered why that verse scared him when he heard it at church all those years ago.

Steve gently, gently—so heartbreakingly, reverently gently—laid his dear friend against a tree, before he—nearly eighty years later, after three wars, after three alien invasions, after _everything_ —met Peggy Carter's eyes. His face shaking, quivering with sudden, pulsing grief, but the anger there—the anger that rested on Steve Rogers' face… Well, let's just say, his anger could have rewritten all the great classic stories of humanity and changed them into one, single screaming word: _hatred._

"What have you _done_?" He asked her, his words quaked with a godforsaken power.

Peggy—a dazzling, frightening array of wet, plastered hair and white, cold features sharply standing out against the darkness of the woods—offered him a terrible little smile. _He remembered why that verse about God scared him so much. It scared him because_ "I can only assume you're upset about your friend." She said softly, matter-of-factly. Her head cocked slightly as she stared at him with an analytical, sharp-splitting gaze that would have cut through marble.

Steve's grip on his shield tightened and his teeth—bleeding and chipped from his fall earlier—gritted in a threatening, bloody grimace. He shook his head slightly and then in one breathtaking, angry throw he threw his shield at her. It whizzed through the air, sharply, deliberately _thwacking_ against a tree and zipping back towards her head–closer, _closer–FROZEN—_ the shield hung in midair, mere centimeters away from Peggy's face. She held up a single, playful finger, curling and bending it, to bring the shield towards her as she began to run her fingers across the shiny metal.

"Were you going to kill me, Steven?" She frowned slightly at the thought and looked up at him. Her eyes a solution of gaunt amusement and yet, somehow maintaining a sense of betrayal. It was as if she couldn't believe he had moved to hurt her after _everything_ she had done. "Well, that's just not going to do, my love." She placed her hands on either side of the shield, a sad little frown coming to her face. Confused. _Angry._ Emotions she seemed to not have planned on. But even so, she looked up at him—locked her cold, cosmic eyes onto his—"That's just not going to do at all."

And then, she collected the strap beneath the shiny shield and _threw_ it back at him. Steve went to dodge it, but there was no need as when it was just mere inches from slamming back into him, the vibranium shield—said to be the strongest metal on Earth—shattered into thousands of pieces before him. Metallic bits and pieces of metal, twirling and floating in epic concentric circles around him, chaotically scattered in slow motion. It was like snow. Vibranium snow that she had created with the destruction of a metal _stronger_ _than_ _God_. _He remembered why that verse about God scared him. It scared him because to have that kind of power, to_ hold that kind of power _within the palms of the Divine was absolutely, mind-blowingly_ terrifying. _God could destroy the entire universe, Dad,_ Steve had once told his father, but Joseph Rogers—drunk and angry—only shook his head. _God does far worse than destroy the universe,_ Steve barely had time to show his shock—how could she have…?

But there was no time to think, Peggy was running from him. She leaped through the hole Steve had punched through the brush to get to Sam and _ran._ Steve released a guttural growl, anger filling up his chest like oxygen to flame. He threw Sam a quick look to make sure he was fine, before he bust through the hole, coarsely and raggedly racing after Peggy.

 _God can do far worse than destroy the universe, me boy, he can make it so that it_ never _was._

Steve had spent more time in his life chasing people than he wanted to admit, but Peggy was _fast_ —faster than _him_. Her run was almost composed of a _leap_ that nimbly and gracefully allowed for her to neatly move through the underbrush of the forest. She moved with increasing agility, as if every moment longer he let her get away, she took as her personal mission to slip further away. And she was good at it, sure, but he was done being left behind in her dust. No matter what he felt, no matter what he wanted, no matter what _happened—_ this ended _now_.

 _What's your game, Peg_? He thought jaggedly as he ran after her. She was showing no signs of letting up and there was _nothing_ to run towards…right? She rolled under a broken tree, which Steve easily jumped over, despite feeling fatigue finally begin to settle into his muscles. "PEGGY, STOP!" He called to her from behind, but Peggy didn't. She didn't stop at all, instead, she turned her head—mid-run, a sly smile sliding over her features—and then, as if she was leaping onto an invisible platform before her, _floated_ high above him, _jumping_ above the treetops.

"Now you're just showing off _._ "He growled to himself and shook his head with a half-annoyed, half-worn grunt.

Sweat was pouring down his face, his lungs ragged and in need of rest, but he knew, if he slowed, if he _stopped,_ he would lose her. Lose her. _I can't lose you…_ He was suddenly climbing a snow-topped mountain in Poland with the Howling Commandos nearly 75 years ago. Bucky was a little further up ahead, Peggy at his side. She had nearly fallen from the edge of the mountain, her boots' traction had become dangerously worn and she had slipped. Steve's reflexes kicked in before anything had happened, but when he confessed his imminent fear of losing her… She had slapped him— _hard_ ; _don't be a sentimental arsehole, you bloody wanker, if you want to be sentimental—go to Bucky,_ not _to me._ At the sound of his name, Bucky turned back at the two of them offering a suggestive wink to Steve, before being called on by Dugan up ahead. It had been a day full of alarm, but it was the day he learned, despite Peggy's protest, he had to protect her. He had to…even if that meant chasing her to the goddamn ends of the earth. So, here he was, with Peggy's warning fresh in his ears, still chasing after her.

" _STEVEEEE_!" He heard Natasha scream from somewhere behind him. It must have been a mile or so back and given the angry path he and Pegs had left in their wake, she'd find them easily. He just had to incarcerate Peggy and then they could get back to the quinjet…then, maybe… No, he wouldn't even allow himself to _think_ about talking to her. She couldn't be reasoned with, he leapt over a fallen tree, _could she_?

But then, again, he didn't have to consider it for long as the trail ended and then he and Peggy had suddenly come to a cliff. About 50 feet high, Steve would have guessed, maybe, just the _right_ height to kill you, if you had any ideas. It overlooked Barton's Farmhouse and his surrounding lands—all dried and brown from the winter. Peggy had stopped, her back to him, as she looked down from the cliff. Steve came up behind her, making sure to keep his distance—he was confused on how to deal with her, but that didn't mean he didn't acknowledge how dangerous she was. The woman had killed countless people, had unpredictable advanced abilities, he was smart enough to hold back.

 _Wait._ Steve's heart stopped in his chest as a shaky image surfaced from his memory. _A dream. But had it really ever been a dream? Peggy leaping off the side of a cliff and into the sea…_ "Peggy." He softly called to her. _I can save her. I can_ save _her if I can just talk to her. If I can just…_

At the sound of his voice, her shoulders bunched, tensed, and flexed sharply. He saw the powerful muscles nestled in her back—muscles like his, formed and molded from liquid in a bottle, grossly disembodied, but still _a part of you…_ The early morning sun was finally beginning to rise over the eastern horizon, as the rays flicked around her silhouette to highlight all of her sharp and imposing curves of muscle and bone. It was easy to tell, she wasn't much besides muscle. Her braid, beginning to unravel and unweave itself from her careful stitching, ran down her back—long and uncut.

"If I was your friend—the one back in the clearing—would you have _chased_ after him as you did me?" Her voice, while maintaining the posh British accent, was oddly distorted. It was as if she was only _pretending_ to know how to speak as she did.

Steve swallowed, unsure of what she meant. "S-Sam…? You mean Sam."

She didn't answer. She didn't even breathe.

"I-I… Peggy, I've been chasing you down for months… Can't you see I'm chasing you right now?" He weakly managed. Speaking felt like tiny shards of glass being shoved down his throat. How could he try to form coherent sentences—in this bizarre, heartbreaking moment?

"Answer the question, Steven." She snapped, suddenly, sharply.

Steve jumped back, frowning at her words. What did she want him to say? "Peg… I… You know that I would." His voice, usually filled with that gooey warmness of authority composed of 'it's been an honor, son' and 'we'll take it from here, sir,' was failing him. Because the man who could stand in front of an army was the solider he had always been, but the man who stood before _her, before Peggy…_ That was just the voice of a 21 year-old kid that was only looking for the right partner, who had cried into her collarbone after losing the love of his life on a train in Austria, who had woken up 70 years later and kept her picture in his compass because even though she was gone…she always knew how to point him in the right direction. When he spoke to Peggy, on that cliff, he wasn't Captain America…he was a kid named Steve, skinny, frail, and finding it suddenly _so hard_ to breathe. Fervent tears came to his eyes, "You know I _will. Always_."

"Would you follow me off this cliff and down below?" She took a tiny step forwards, her toes hanging off the edge of the cliff. A few stones shakily fell from the ridge.

His heart raggedly beat against his chest and he could feel his breath splitting. He wasn't really breathing, sure, he was inhaling, but nothing was coming out. "Peg— _doll,_ don't… Don't… Don't do that." Steve felt his voice receding from reason and merely becoming a plea; a begging prayer. Don't leap. Don't leave. Don't leave _me_.

At that, Peggy turned to him—a face full of strange and ancient and beautiful and rabid emotions—she didn't even seem to know what she felt. But she knew what she felt was sudden, indescribable. It was as if _when she turned to look at him, she was feeling emotion for the first time…feeling_ everything, _all of it, all at once…_ A small harsh breath escaped through her lips. Tears flooded her eyes, her lips quivered. "I can't stop myself… I can't _stop_ being what I am…" She struggled with her words, trying so desperately to fill an empty crease in her heart; the aching, unfillable little hole that she only wanted to define... "I can't… I need…" She gasped as tears flooded down her cheeks. "I need… I _need_ you."

And that was all Steve needed to hear, he took five strides towards her, but when he was merely inches away, _mere movements away…_ she met his eyes and a sorrow came over her face; a _sorrow_ so rigid, frightened, and _real_ , it could have only been meant for him. She gave one little shake of her head; a white flag being raised; a sick man lying down to die; a little sailboat lost in a vast ocean… Steve, realized what she was about to do, what she was _going to do_ —he reached for her, _tried to grab her…_ but she _leaped…_

 _Down_

 _Down_

 _Down_

" _PEGGY…NOOOOOO…"_ Steve screeched as he ran to the edge, half-hanging over, half-falling, himself. His hand somehow caught him from falling over the edge after her, but he was shaking, convulsing as he dared himself to look over the ledge. But he didn't see her. She wasn't slumped on the lonely, empty farmlands below, she wasn't hanging from a rock beneath him… Where was—

 _And on the third day,_ from the sky, she came, _Jesus rose._ She landed before him while he was still on his knees before her, and opened her arms in a gloriously awful way, the trees behind them _ripped_ from their roots and wrapped around Steve's waist and legs. The ground split in half as he was thrown to one side, landing painfully on his shoulder as the tree's roots wrapped around his body. The earth began to shake beneath them as she allowed the world to open up and _lose control…_ "Peggy—what the _hell are you doing?! Peggy—"_

He stopped screaming when he saw her smile. This had been her plan all along. This whole thing, this whole traumatic suicidal leap had been a _joke…_ She had done it to prove something. _Don't be a sentimental arsehole._ She had wanted to see if she still had the pull over him, and she did….

 _Oh, God_ , Steve realized, as she stepped closer to him, the trees growing up and around his neck, _she isn't who you thought she is… She isn't who you wanted her to be._ Bucky had lied. He hadn't told him what Peggy had become, he didn't tell him what she became… What twisted, gnarled thing had grown in place of her heart. _God may have been able to make it so the world never was, but Peggy—on her best day—could have burned all of creation and called it 'resurrection.'_

"You thought you could save me." She said softly as she walked over to him, grabbing his face in her hands. "You thought you reach inside my head and find what's left of me, but like I told you so very long ago, my love…" She righted him with a single hand and pulled out a combat blade from her belt. "If you wanted to be overly sentimental, you should have stayed with James…" Before Peggy, with a swift, graceful movement, knifed him directly into the stomach. His eyes widened and his breath caught in his throat as the pain blossomed deep in his gut, nearly knocking him unconsciousness. He queasily looked down at the blood oozing from the knife wound in his chest, before he rolled his eyes back up to her. His massive, blue eyes—blurry with tears, betrayed and heartbroken—locked onto hers as a choked gasp left his throat.

"You… You said you n-needed…"

"I know what I said, darling," she cocked her head and gave him a vaguely sympathetic look, "it was a lie."

* * *

 **JANUARY 2011**

"You're _lying!"_ Emi screamed at her. Angry, pulsing tears flowed from her eyes. She was standing on the other side of the hotel room, watching 16 with a ragged expression of denial. It was as if she couldn't dare to wrap her mind around the idea of what she was talking about.

"Why would I lie, Emilie?" She asked her with a bold flavor ringing in her voice. "You have always known this is what I came for—you have _always_ known I made a promise."

Emi turned and walked to the window, resting her forehead against it as the tears fell down her cheeks like they were exotic dancers, twirling down her face with a distant tune. Her alarmingly bright kaleidoscope eyes had turned murky with swampy, ugly distinction. "You will die." She whispered into the glass. "You'll _die_!" She screamed and slammed her fist against the window. Her features were enraged, tilting, breaking, and shifting with the rapid shapes of her feelings.

16 sat down on the bed, crossing her legs and tried not to feel the hot anger of Emi's scream roll over her. She turned her head coolly, not acknowledging her partner's pain. "What am I do, then, darling? Allow for HYDRA to steal it and change the course of history?"

* * *

Natasha broke through the edge of the forest, Clint at her side with his bow and arrow ready, just as the quinjet— _their quinjet—_ was beginning to rise upwards into the sky. Below it, hanging from a steel-rope ladder attached to its belly, was Peggy, clutching to her chest the limp and obviously unconscious body of Steve Rogers.

Natasha's eyes widened—she had to _save_ Steve. She had to SAVE him. She ran to the edge of the cliff, about to jump onto the last rung of the ladder. _If it was down to me to save you, would you trust me to get you out? I have to get him. I have to SAVE him._ 45 degrees forward, 587 to the west _._ She did the math as she ran. _Stupid, Natalia, you will not make it_. Alexi's voice rang in her head like an irritating reminder, clanging pots and pans of metaphysical bullshit in her head. _YOU WILL NOT MAKE IT._

"Yes. I. Will." She growled each word with each step she took and when she reached the edge of the cliff, she could literally see the angles and movements she had to make formulate in front of her as she readied herself.

 _I would now._ She leaped into the air, about to fly into the sky, but a strong, solid and physically imposing pair of arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her down into them. "No." The voice sharply advised. She opened her eyes, not realizing they were closed, and saw Clint looking down at her. His tired, agonized face raw with a physically _tired_ tension.

"N-No… _No, Clint—let ME FUCKING GO!"_ She screamed at him, beating against his chest as she finally slipped free and ran to the edge, but it was too late. Steve and Peggy were in the quinjet, heading God knows where. " _STEVEEEE!_ " Natasha shouted, her screech echoed across the empty farmlands around them. As she fell to her knees, barely managing to stay upright as a heavy sense of dreaded weight landed on her shoulders.

She turned sharply to look at Clint. Her green eyes glittering with keen, tangible tears. "Why the _fuck_ would you do that?" She got up and ran to him, punching him _heavily_ in the gut. " _Why would you do that?! He's gone—he's fucking GONE, AND IT'S YOUR FUCKING FAULT."_ She screamed at him, pounding against his chest with everything she had, but Clint—not taking any more shit—grabbed her fists.

"Stop." He snapped. "I lost everything today." He said dryly, his eyes meeting her shaky, teary ones. "I'm not losing you."

Natasha's face cracked apart, the two women within her, the Widow and the girl he had loved, fighting against one another to gain control. She bunched her teeth and shook her head. Part of her wanted to fling herself against him, another part just wanted to kill him. "Losing everything is not a _fucking_ excuse, Barton." She snapped coldly, harshly pushing past him. "And I am _so tired_ of everyone fucking using it. Now, come with me, we need to get to Sam."

* * *

 **JANUARY 2011**

"At least then you would be _alive_." Emi snapped back at her question. 16 could feel her eyes digging into the side of her face, clawing their way across her to try and probe information out of her expression

"You know what's coming, Emi." 16 said softly, but her face revealed nothing. "You have _always_ known, just as I have. That's why you asked me to burn your body, isn't it? Because you know what will happen when I _do_ —and so, you, you sacrificial bloody _whore,_ dare come to me with this bloodyplea of survival? Of all the hypocritical bollocks I have encountered…" She took to her feet, slowly walking over to Emi with steady, deliberate footsteps.

Her friend refused to turn her head to look at her. "I will die for the woman I love, but you go to die for men who do not deserve you."

 _Peggy_ grabbed Emi's lovely chin and looked her in the eyes. "You know _nothing,"_ her features silently spread apart at the word 'nothing'—as if it was meant to be delivered with great emphasis, "nothing of the feelings I have for _any_ man." Her words were not sharp, but dangerously quiet, as if they were spoken as a solemn oath, a blood pact delivered on the steps of a temple thousands of years ago. And her eyes weren't angry, but simply _old,_ ancient and brittled with age. "You know nothing of my _love,_ as you call it, and the great bounds and mountains I climb for it…. You know _nothing_. And obviously, my radiantly impotent friend, know _nothing_ of my feelings for you." Tears welled in her own eyes as she watched her partner's jaw twitch at the mention of her feelings. She knew she hit a nerve.

Emi turned her head at Peggy's sudden tenderness. Sinthea Schmidt was not used to it, not used to the abrupt and focused emotion of Carter's gaze. She wasn't used to being _loved_. Not by anyone, but especially by Margaret Carter. "You're lying." Or being in love.

"Not to you." Peggy said softly, bringing the younger woman's face back to focus on hers. "Never to you." She leaned her forehead against hers, closing her eyes as they rested upon one another. They knew what was coming—the two of them—these two maidens of war, given extraordinary powers, knew the universe was making its move…and soon, they would make theirs.

* * *

M16 stood on the quinjet looking over the disappearing landscape of the Barton Farm. She turned her head to see the unconscious body of Steve, slumped in the co-pilot's chair. His head hung down against his chest as if he was lost in a deep sleep. She walked over to him, not daring to reach out and touch him, but rather, squatted back on her haunches, to look into his limp, drowsy face.

"You know nothing of my love." She whispered to him, watching him with a positively unreadable expression written across her face.


	16. There Was No Time, Until There Was

**FEBRUARY 2010**

M16 easily glided over the wall of the Kamar-Taj fortress. Her feet landed in the fresh snow with a quick _petch_ noise, as her military-grade combat boots sunk into the soft white substance. She landed in a squat with her fingerless-gloved hand resting easily on top of the surface. Her powerful legs came around to straddle the ground before her, sliding up easily into a standing position. She was wrapped up in a body-fitting combative suit—not unlike that of the Black Widows Ops' uniform—but with a thick, black mesh that went up to her chin.

She moved her head up to look at the intimidating size and breadth of the temples of Kamar-Taj before her. If it had been another world, another time, Peggy Carter would have wanted to look inside this place with all the respect it should have received. This was a place where masters were trained in mystic arts, where the boundaries of reality were questioned, where dimensions blurred and time, a respected and untouched guardian of the universe, became just another undefined notion of what _could_ be. Yes, Peggy Carter—the woman who believed in the changeable nature of all things—would have liked this place. But whether that was the case or not, M16 did not have time to question what Peggy would have wanted.

Her fingers slid across the untouched snow before her, feeling out for the mystical trip lines the sorcerers had skillfully laid out. Indeed, there were many. They spread out around her like webbing from a masterful spider, coating up against one another in the hundreds. Some were old, some were fresh, but all were just as potent. _So_ , don't touch the ground.

Perhaps this would be harder than she thought.

But then again, she cocked her head, glowering up at the warm lighting of the Tibetan-styled windows above her, _they knew she was here._ Why play the spy, when she could just use the front door?

And it was with that brilliant line of thinking, that she ran straight into the invisible trip lines and started sprinting across the lawn.

Immediately, as soon as she crossed into them, the golden lines of protection began exploding with blinding, fiery light. If the magicians that had put the protection spells in place had not known she was here, they would, without a doubt, know now. But she didn't let that deter her—if she could make it inside, she would have an easier time fighting off an angry horde of sorcerers-in-training. There were more places to hide, more things she could use as weapons—sorcerers may have mystical powers, but they were still human. _They could still bleed._

Making it to the front of the temple, she leaped onto the icy steps her boots slid across the sleek, black ice. She grabbed hold of a cracked column to steady herself from slipping. She did a quick check behind her to see if anyone was following, which fortunately, no one had still made an appearance. _Odd._ She turned and crossed through the main pagoda-styled doorframe. Warmth and heat immediately greeted her chilled face. She didn't even realize she was cold, or that her sweat from climbing the mountain to get here, had frozen to her forehead. She wiped it off with a jerk of her wrist across her skin, while she took in her surroundings.

The corridor she had stepped inside of was long, with tiled mosaics of deities from every culture of the world—Zeus, Hera, Hestia, Brahma, Vishnu, God, Jesus, Odin, Hela, Ilah, Jehovah, Ra, Isis, Horus—stretching out to one another from all different directions across a large, night sky. They held hands, enjoined arms, caked the universe with themselves. M16 realized she was in the Hall of the Gods—a place that was sacrosanct, especially holy in the temples of Kamar-Taj. If it had been anyone else, perhaps they would have been moved by the way these sorcerers—of all religions and cultures—came _together_ , bound only by their will to do _good_ … But she wasn't anyone else.

And she had come here on a mission. Not to admire the floor.

She walked down the sacred hall and just as she was about the reach the door at the end, she felt _it_. The power. It was like a sharp, painful version of when one's leg falls asleep spreading over her body. She knew there were a swarming multitude of magicians gathering around her. With her hand still reaching for the handle of the door, she smirked to herself, and without turning around said: "Sorry to drop-in so unexpectedly, my darlings, I suppose you would have preferred I called." She turned around sharply, coming face-to-face with a group of 10 cloaked, robed, and armed sorcerers.

Their hands were spread apart to show their glowing luminosities of power. She could feel the fine radiance of their affinities reflecting onto her skin, her own share of power reaching up to meet it. The one in the middle—an old Chinese man with a long silvery beard—stepped forward. "If you leave now, young one, we will not kill you." She had read about this man, he was a legend among the mystics—the famed Master Khadu.

16 chuckled. "Oh, my dear, so grave—why must we go straight to the killing?" She shook her head with a little 'tsk' of her tongue before she spread her arms out in a spread-eagle pose.

The power, the power she kept bottled deep within herself, bubbled up and began to seep out around her. Invisible, unseen, but free at last, her power spread out around her like a large, cosmic ripple. It shook the air around her, cracked the floor beneath their feet, the columns around them began to rumble from the sudden unsteadiness of their formation.

And just as the columns began collapsing across the floor in front of the sorcerers, 16, jerking out an arm suddenly, brought down the beautifully structured ceiling down onto them. The dust exploded upwards with epic velocity and projection, some of the fallout violently broke from the collapsing architecture and cut across M16's face. But she willed it to steady itself, bringing her arms back together against the gravitational forces of physics, making the falling bricks and columns, formation and building, come together and compact itself into a dense package.

She could hear the screams of the sorcerers as the messy structure around them condensed, crushing their bones and bodies together. 16, barely protecting herself with her power's reflective barrier, crushed her teeth together in effort as she finished off her work. The tumbling building around her was falling _in_ and together, as if being pulled into a sort of vortex. The ancient fixtures came in so _very_ close to her head, but she managed to stay upright even as the building came to fall in around her, on top of her, swallowing her, collapsing on her… When she could no longer allow the powerful stream of energy to run from her fingers, she fell to her knees in breathlessness as the world continued to fall around her. She had just destroyed a good half of the front temple and a handful of powerful magicians. What else could she _possibly_ get into?

She slowly crawled through the wreckage of the temple, back towards where the door had been. She could feel the energy of the Eye of Agamotto reaching out to her from beyond the carnage. _It will find you, before you find it…_ She could hear Emi's words in her ear. _It knows you. It has known you for all Time. It has known you before you were known. It has seen you, Carter, and it knows_ exactly _what you want._

"Alright, Agent, pull yourself together." She hissed to herself, gritting her teeth through the blood that was pouring down her face. 16 reached up and grabbed hold of a broken light fixture—flickering unsteadily above her—and pulled herself up. The world dangerously went crooked as a wave of exhaustion rolled over her, but she shook it off. She had been through far worse than a collapsed building. And she knew, this wouldn't be the worst thing she would face today.

She tried to take a step, but realized, with a little _oh_ , her ankle was twisted at a rotten angle. _Well, you're quite useless, aren't you?_ She frowned at it with a cold sense of dissociative difference. She remembered when Emi had told her she had once sown her own organs back into her body. It was in the early days of her training at HYDRA. After Emilie had shoved a knife into her gut, left her to lay in her own blood for three nights with no water or food, Peggy had measly managed to sew up her own wound. But it had grown incredibly infected as a result, and Emi, well, being Emi, was not kind to the delirious fever she was developing.

But she did sit with her while she lay shaking in that filthy HYDRA cell, telling her stories of her own HYDRA training.

 _Our bodies our not your own, Carter._

M16 gritted her teeth harder against the agonizing pain that suddenly began to burn through her broken ankle. She sat down on a slanted stoop within the broken hall of the temple and pulled her ankle into her lap. _And we must—for the sake of the mission—learn to live without them._ She stuffed the extra mesh of her uniform into her mouth to act as a sound guard, grabbed hold on both sides of her ankle, and with one, congruous motion _snapped_ it back into place.

 _We are ghosts._ She silently screamed into the fabric stuffed deep into her mouth. Instinctual tears came to her eyes as the pain nearly became so great, she blacked out. _We do not live. We exist. And only then, do we exist within a mere presence. Yes, Carter,_ M16 held her ankle to her body, shaking in agony, _our bodies exist only for the sake of HYDRA's gain._ Tears ran down her dirt-encrusted face, making clear rivers through the grime. _And we do what we must without_ ever _knowing our own boundaries._

She spat out her uniform and pulled herself up once more, standing uneasily onto her injured ankle. It burned excruciatingly. But that was something she just didn't have time for. HYDRA's gain didn't wait.

With a painful pulsing roaming throughout her foot, she limped along the rubble of the temple, barely making it through the next wing of Kamar-Taj. She passed relics, priceless artefacts, bones and fossils, graves and memorials, precious treasures, jewels, art, sculptures; every anthropologist's dream, but hardly stopped to admire any of it. It was there, it was acknowledged, and the point of its usefulness had been noted and catalogued in her memory. But that's all they were to her—not the signs of legacy or lineage of sorcerers, but _useful_ or _useless._

Besides, they weren't relevant to where the Eye was leading her. If they were, it would have stopped her. Because, while at first, M16 was paranoid as to where the Eye would lead her, across the long and winding hallways, it turns out, she didn't have to worry that much. The powerful source of energy seemed to _want_ her to come to it. It both communicated and led her through altars to deities, empty dorms for magicians-in-training, libraries of every kind, countless hallways, courtyards, and by the time she reached the Grand Library where it was kept, she couldn't believe she had destroyed so much…and yet, there was still so much left.

Limping through on her crooked ankle, M16 tenderly walked in, and felt out with the limited sense of her power for more mystical trip lines. There were none. In fact, for that matter, there was no one around. This made sense. It was nearly Spring in the Himalayan mountains, and while Kamar-Taj was the so-called 'hub' for the sorcerers of the mystic arts, it was not their "home." They came here in the Fall and Winter to rejuvenate, recalibrate, and reconstruct themselves in the comfort of other powerful magicians. Despite the slaughter that had taken place in the first fifteen minutes of her arrival, HYDRA had picked an ideal time to send her in.

As she entered, 16 also found that the old, musty smell of books that hit her face was like an old friend screaming to her from another time. She was immediately reminded of her father's study. He had tucked a First Edition of _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_ between his desk and the wall that he would let her read, if she was very, _very_ gentle. When her father had died, she had burned it, she had burned everything that her parents had loved.

Peggy Carter hadn't liked to be reminded of the things she had lost. They were messy, unorganized feelings of heavy sadness, not things you could simply tuck into neat, little boxes. But M16 didn't care about her memories or what she had been or who she was or who she would _become_. Dreams. Humanity. Pain. Hope. These things were privileges, and they were not things she missed.

Why she was thinking of these things in this particular instant, she wasn't sure, but she _had_ to pull the nostalgia together. It would do nothing but limit her, distract her, and she couldn't afford to be distracted. She walked quickly—as best she could—into the foreground of the vast library. She ignored the towers of books, the books locked in spelled-cages to protect the viewer from their dark contents, the books in the piles off to the side, the books so old she couldn't read their bindings, the books written in languages so-dead only two people could have probably understood them, and walked to the back where she knew she would find it. After all, these things meant nothing to her as she saw, in the back of the Library, a small, golden eye. It was closed as if it was sleeping.

 _Hello, my love._ She stalked over to it, reaching out with her power. The Eye of Agamotto began to move off of its tiny, carefully-placed easel beneath it, slowly twirling in the air into her fingers. And just as it was about to gracefully collide with her palm, just as she was about to clasp her fingers around it, her mind already thinking of ways to crush it under her foot—the world froze.

The world froze and a bright, all-encompassing light swallowed 16 up. The light consumed everything, making all of the space around her white and viciously blinding.

" _Gahhhhhhhhh_ ," 16 screamed as she felt herself splitting apart. Literally. Her skin was tearing off of her body, blood and cords of muscle being undone as her head cracked apart and a glowing light projected itself from her mind.

 _What have we here?_ A soft, feminine voice echoed across the blank cosmos of this foreign, blinding place she had found herself in.

Around her, her life— _Peggy's life_ —began to spew off in directions, the memories, the thoughts, the dreams, the fears, the ambitions, the voices of all those people she had loved and lost came to overwhelm her. _You want to steal Time—what for? For family?_

She is 12. "And by my own power, I will _slay_ the dragon and save the princess."

A little wayward lady knight with homemade armor, stood guard over a toddling infant that could only have been her baby sister. The little knight stood tall with her wooden sword and her face woven with the undeniable Carter resolve. She turned to look down at her little sister, a small and gentle smile came to her face. "Princess Mary, you are of the utmost beauty and grace in all the land." She produced a makeshift crown she had made out of blooming clover, wildflowers, and twigs, placing it on the head of the giggling baby. "And I will protect you until I meet my death most nobly."

 _Touching, but it's not that._

The blinding light was back, obscuring her from seeing the figure that was slowly approaching her. They filled out the shape of a human, blocking the bright unforgiving rays of glaring, white light. She could tell she was still screaming—her body now breaking down into thousands of pieces and parts—as the figure above her sorted through her as if she was looking through a file drawer.

 _Is it for freedom?_

She is 22. "What do you think is going to happen, Margaret? You're going to join this-this SSR and the world is going to _open_ itself up to you?" Her mother screamed at her from across a dinner table.

Her father was looking down at his cold porkchops, avoiding looking in either direction between his daughter and wife.

"You must be _bloody_ mad if you expect this to change anything for you. You are a _lady_ , Margaret, _not_ a soldier." Her face was red with anger and those eyes—those chocolate brown eyes that were so like her own—glared back at her with a fierce wall of rage. She would accept nothing of her daughter's dream to join this agency.

"The world is changing, Mother—England is going to _war_ , I have no right to do anything _less_ than my own part. I know the value of my own power, something you will _never_ understand of me." Peggy rigidly delivered to her mother in a furious display of lingual grace. Her words were tight, but forceful, steady but timbred with authority, and she spoke them one-by-one.

Her baby sister, now a quiet, yet sharply clever little girl, precociously took her sister's hand from beneath the table. She squeezed it tightly, while her sister, squeezed it back, not daring to turn from her mother's face. "You cannot keep me here," she released a shaky breath as the only tear she would shed ran down her face, "and you cannot make me marry a person I do not _love_."

 _Oh,_ no _, that's not it either…finding your own power was never a problem for you… Plucky little thing you are._

 _Ah, what's this?_

She is 25. She is outside an abandoned, war-torn bar in Austria. Steve is sobbing to himself inside, she can hear him from the outside of the building. Sobbing over Bucky, sobbing over the love of his life, sobbing into his hands without reason or strength… She walks in and immediately, he sniffs loudly to pull himself together, thinking her to be Dugan or Morita.

He pours himself some scotch into a dirty glass. She looks at him, he looks at her. He's somber, in agony, aching, but despite it at all, he's still clear-eyed. He's still Steve. Tragedy doesn't wash the strong ones out like Steve, it _emboldens_ them. It gives them fuel.

They make a joke about the fact that he can't get drunk. He's stalling. She doesn't believe him.

"It wasn't your fault." She argues, before he even makes a case.

"You read the report?"

"Yes."

"Then you know that's not _true_." His voice weakens. No, it doesn't crack, it softens, it grows _quieter._ "I got in over my head. Bucky waded in and pulled me out, just like he always did. And the one time he needed me to return the favor, I couldn't."

"Steven, it is entirely _not_ thatsimple." Peggy pulled up close to him in her seat, looking at the side of his face, which was no longer hiding his grief, it had grown crestfallen, betrayed, dejected… He was avoiding her gaze.

"All I had to do was _hold_ him…" His voice was so soft, so empty, so drained of his exuberance and will that it was as if it was a breath of air from a dying man. Bucky took with him so much of Steve that he was drifting out into a vast ocean of grief, a sickly 9-year-old boy, once more, without the boy who protected him and loved him, for all that he was…

Peggy grabbed hold of his arm, forcing him to look at her. "I believed in Bucky Barnes—with my whole _heart_ —" her voice crippled under the weight of her own grief for the wild American boy they had both loved, "and I _know_ you did, too." She fixed her lip to keep it from quivering as a glassy, crystalline little tear ran down her face.

Steve was looking at her now—his own emotions on the verge of breaking open through to his face. His blue-green eyes were misty with tears, tears he had doubted he still had.

"To blame ourselves—yourself, myself—for what has happened, is to dishonor the _dignity_ of James' choice. He believed _you_ , Steve, were worth dying for…and we cannot allow for that be disregarded as mere _fault_." She paused, taking hold of his hands in hers, looking into his eyes. Silent, heavy tears were rolling down his face as well as hers. "He loved you; he, loved, you." They tightened their fingers around each other's hands, Steve bit his lip to keep from outright sobbing, as she whispered: "Let that be what it is."

He was shaking, now, shaking from her words and from his grief. She didn't hesitate as she pulled him against her, her arms encircling him like he was a small, sick boy from Brooklyn who had lost the one piece of home he still had.

 _Hmm… Telling, but that's not it, either._

And then, she felt her body—sprawling in all directions, split apart with violent purpose—finally come back together in a sick, _snapping_ sensation. The voice had found it.

The center of her soul.

A little girl, with honey-due curls, bright brown eyes, barely six years-old, stood quivering before Peggy, holding onto the unmoving body of a frail, sallow blonde-haired boy. She was screaming into his face, trying to revive him from some kind of misfortune that must have befallen him. And at the same time, they stood out in a crumbling city, the world was exploding around them, and she just wanted to hide him from a world that was burning.

A world that wanted to swallow him,

destroy him,

 _eat him alive…_

Only she could protect him. Only she could know the strength it would take to keep him safe. _Only I can save him from himself._

 _Ah, and there it is… A little girl, trying to protect the one person she cannot live without, at the very edge of a dying world._

Peggy was crying, screaming in agony as everything was slowly being pieced back together. _You want to steal Time to—what? Change the fate of your love?_ Her bones were growing back, every inch, every agonizing length of her skeleton was physically _reconstructing_ itself. Her muscle, layers of epidermis and skin began to slink back across her body, enveloping her back in a stasis of existence.

 _No, you don't want to steal time at all, do you? No,_ they _want you to, but you…_ Peggy was now standing on an empty Wakandan battlefield ten years into the future, screaming over a pile of ashes beneath her feet. Pounding into the dirt as she tried to piece them back together, as she tried and tried and tried and tried to sow them back to life. " _NOOOOOOOOOOOO_ " she screamed into the air, her hands opening as the sky above her broke open with darkness that began to rain down on the entire world. She knew this vision. She knew this vision intimately.

She had known it since she first lost Bucky. She remembered the dreams that had followed that night, this strange image of her, screaming over ashes in a jungle because a force had come and destroyed everything she loved.

She had seen it every night of her life since the night she lost him. "No," she found herself speaking to the voice, a painful and prickling feeling, " _I want to destroy it._ "

The voice chuckled in response as if it had heard something twistedly funny. _You want to destroy Time? To save them._

 _Ah, I see._

 _But, my child, how do you think destroying Time will stop_ him _?_

"Because if there is no Time—" she gasped through her involuntary screams – "than _they_ can never be…and I can protect _them_." Space opened up around her and suddenly she was falling through the stars, supernovas soaring past her, comets and meteors gracefully gliding over her. She wasn't even sure if she had a body, or if she was merely a presence in this universe, if she was an entity of what had once been a woman named Peggy Carter.

 _But to destroy Time is a grave offense, and you must answer to that inconsequence, Margaret Carter. Why should I let you live, if you only mean to destroy the world for a childish, selfish reason?_

She could feel the seams of her body begin to dissolve again like ash floating off the face of a young boy, stuck on a planet, without anyone he loved. "I made a _promise_ …" She sobbed, screaming out over the cold and empty planes of universe. " _I MADE A PROMISE TO HIM…"_

And then there was nothing.

* * *

When she came back to herself, she saw she was on her knees in a blizzard, outside of Kamar-Taj, her entire body was glowing as it _finally_ had come back together. But everything _burned._ She dropped over into the ice and snow as the frigid air cooled her fresh skin and muscle like icy water poured over molten metal. She was steaming vapors up into the night sky above her as she came to notice she was naked. Every piece of her—right down the birthmark on her left shoulder—was still intact.

Above her, standing over her exhausted body with an intense, inquisitive gaze was the most exquisite woman Peggy had ever seen. She was bald and androgynous, but something was distinctly, sharply feminine. She offered her a lazy yet knowing smile. "Congratulations, Margaret Carter, you've just saved your own life."

"W-Who are you?" She whispered, her voice groggy and overused.

Her smug, entertained smile widened at her question. If that smile hadn't been heartbreakingly beautiful, Peggy would have thought it absolutely terrifying. "I am who they call the Ancient One, but you my student, you may call me Ailis."


	17. Start Over

Steve awoke in a groggy, drugged daze. _What is this…?_ He tried to move his powerful arms, but he could only weakly acknowledge they were tied to the back of a chair. He was half-naked, his uniform stripped down to his waist and the stab wound Peggy had delivered to his stomach was wrapped tightly up in white, bloody bandages. He could sense the bleeding had stopped, but due to the uncomfortable, hollowed clench of his gut, he knew he needed serious medical attention. He could tell—even in his sleepy state—that the knife had punctured several major organs. He would need surgery. Even if the bleeding had stopped, internal bleeding was still a major risk. Sure, there was his healing factor, but the infection for him was just as real as anybody else getting stabbed in the intestines.

Despite the intense weight of his head, he managed to raise it a few inches above his shoulders and survey his surroundings. He drowsily recognized he was in an empty warehouse of sorts. It was wide with high-ceilings, much like an airplane hangar or an empty parking garage without the multilayering. He tried to listen to the sounds outside of the building – his highly-advanced hearing going into overdrive to pick up on anything around him, but he couldn't identify any cars or voices in the proximity.

However, there were windows. Lots of them. They were all short, squatted, and square, lining the top tresses of the warehouse's roofing. And the light emitted through them was bleak, yet bright. He could tell it was sometime during the day and the sky above him was overcast.

God, he was so fucking _exhausted_. Whatever Peggy had him on, it was strong. He felt like he could close his eyes and _fall…_

"Steve _…_ " He reopened his eyes, not even realizing he had fallen back to sleep, and saw _him_ , Bucky, _Bucky…_ He looked strong, ready, and assertive as he was coming towards him from across the warehouse floor. The heavy combat boots he wore were clicking across the polished concrete floor with powerful resonance. "Well, don't you have yourself tangled up in a mess." He chuckled with an affectionate smirk coming across his face. His hair was cut, no longer long and untrimmed. He looked clear-eyed, he looked ready for battle.

" _Buck…_ " He gently whispered, partly because he was too weak to voice his name, partly because he was afraid of being heard. But the tears that were glittering in his eyes – those were real, those were strictly for the love of his life marching across the room to him. "H-How'd you… How'd you find me?" He managed to ask, but his tongue was _heavy,_ and he could barely keep his eyes open. He could barely look at Bucky, despite wanting nothing more than to just stare, _marvel_ at him.

"Story for another time, bud –" he was now standing before Steve, looking around warily, his metallic left hand was twitching with anxiety, before he looked back down to his boyfriend. That loving, protective little smile began to unbend itself across his lips: "Right now, it's time I gotcha out of here."

He knelt down for a moment, touching Steve's face, leaning his forehead against his, while closing his eyes. "I missed you. _I missed you more than you know…_ " His eyes reopened as he met Steve's sleepy, half-open eyes. Steve slid his forehead from Bucky's and dropped it onto his shoulder, nestling his head there as if it was the most comfortable place he could have been.

"Missed you…" Steve drowsily whispered, his tongue slurring his words. He was already drifting back off, his eyes rolling back up into his head. He just wanted to stay with him _forever_.

 _They were both out of time. They both didn't belong in this world. But here, with him, they could be anywhere…and he knew he was safe._

When he awoke again, Bucky was undoing the chains from his arms with skillfully quick fingers. He was looking up anxiously at the door across the way, it was barred with a bent crowbar Bucky must have shoved through the handles to keep Peggy out. But something was wrong – Steve could hear it, _the pounding_ from the other side. He felt his heart begin to accelerate.

"Buck – Bucky, she's coming." He hissed.

Bucky gave the back of Steve's head a scowl. "Yeah, nice observation there, Sherlock."

Steve could feel him trying to untwist the knots of chains twisted around his wrists. He could finally manage to move a little bit now, the drugs mostly out of his system. He grunted with effort as he tried to shift in the chair.

" _Steve_." Bucky warned, not wanting him to over exert himself.

"No, let me _try_ –" He began to spread his shoulders, pulling opposite ways within the chains. He could feel the steel beginning to weaken under his pulling. It was screeching – _SCRRCCCHHHHH_ – as he desperately wiggled within them. His super strength going into overdrive as he felt his brow crease with effort, sweat beading on his temples. The wound in his chest was painfully pulsing with every twist and move of his body.

Meanwhile, the door – banging, shaking, quivering – was about to give. Bucky made quick eye contact with Steve, a quick _don't do anything stupid,_ before he ran to it. Bucky's metal arm calibrated, he spun the large rifle around his body, locked it into place, and stood at the ready as the door shook with merciless vibration. It was ready to give.

And any second, Peggy would be there – bearing down on them with no mercy.

Steve was groaning as he pulled with everything of his upper body, his teeth clenching with effort. The chipped bone of his teeth was painfully cutting into his bottom lip, blood beginning to ooze down his chin, but he hardly took notice. His biceps were bulging, extending to full size. Anyone seeing him would have thought he was stopping a train from going off the tracks single-handedly. _What are these chains made of?_

The door burst down, causing dust and brick to explode everywhere. Peggy erupted through the dust, coming to squat in that cliché assassin pose, but Bucky knew, where it was impossible for others, that was just pure science for M16. "Hiya, Peg, nice to see ya." He said softly with his gun tucked under his chin.

Peggy growled and leaped at him, not even pausing to quip. Unusual, but Bucky suspected she would have been pissed. "You're not even gonna ask about my haircut?" He caught her mid-leap, catching her by the throat, and slamming her down onto the ground. He came to straddle her, his hands coming around to her neck. He had to incarcerate her; it was the only way she wouldn't fucking kill them both.

However, in the blink of an eye, she slipped her body up like a bridge, unsteadying Bucky from his position on top of her. She used that to her advantage, unseating him, and violently placing herself on top. Peggy's arm was braced against Bucky's neck, choking the life out him, as her legs – powerful and poised – nailed him down onto the floor. Bending down so their faces were mere inches apart, she whispered: "It looks cheap."

Bucky, hacking from the intense pressure of her arm on his neck, was barely holding onto consciousness. "You…really…hurt…my feelings…Peg…" He grunted through his blocked airway. Maybe that was enough of a distraction – his metal arm reached up with a last-ditch effort to pull her off of him, but she merely used her free hand to slap it back down. She had seen it coming a mile away. Her body was spread out like patchwork, coating across him, stitching him into the earth – he never had a chance against her in the first place.

He turned slightly, uncomfortably, to give Steve one last look, before he noticed, to his surprise, an empty, busted pile of chains and one bent-out-of-shape chair sat where Steve had been. He smirked. "Hey, Peg – you remembered Steve's got that super solider sauce, too, right?"

And just as she was about to look where Steve should have been, Steve, himself, mauled into her. Shoving her off of Bucky, he tackled her onto the floor. Her head denting the concrete from the impact that Steve shoved her into it. She dizzily tried to regain her balance, but once she was up, Steve could tell she was woozy, unsteady. As much as he hated it, he knew what he had to do. "Sorry, doll." He socked her in the stomach, shoving her to her knees as she fell to the side coughing weakly. And then, once she was down, he punched her oncein the side of the head. She collapsed to her side, limp and unconscious.

He turned sharply and went to Bucky who was still trying to recover on the floor. "Come on, pal." He helped him up, Bucky leaning heavily on him.

"You know, I was the one who was supposed to be rescuing you." Bucky smirked with a weak smile coming alongside his face.

Steve stopped them in the middle of that warehouse and stared at Bucky, gently smiling at him. His eyes brimming with love and devotion. "You do rescue me…every goddamn day, Buck." His eyes searched his, shifting back-and-forth between those beautiful baby blues as if he needed to make sure his message was clear. And then, once he was sure Bucky heard him, he leaned over, still supporting Bucky with his own weight, and kissed him. He rested his forehead onto his boyfriend's, smiling a little at the salty aftertaste of their kiss. "When we get out of here let me tell ya'—"

…

Steve opened his eyes. Towering over him, Peggy loomed, arms crossed, hair pulled back tightly against her scalp in a viciously-woven French braid. Her eyes were narrowed, watching him with a vibrant, angry gaze. "Did you have a nice dream, Steven?"

He looked frantically around, but Bucky… _Bucky_ … Bucky was nowhere to be seen. He had imagined the whole goddamn thing.

* * *

Natasha tossed the ACE bandage onto the floor she had been using to wrap up Sam's leg. Sam was laying on the couch in Barton's living room, dipping in-and-out of consciousness as he mumbled things incoherently under his breath. He really should have gone to a hospital for an injury like that, but they couldn't afford to walk into an ER and be recognized by the first person who saw them. Nat dabbed the sweat and dirt off of Sam's face with a warm, wet washrag, biting her lip in concern. The bucket she had been using to dip it into was filthy and needed to be emptied, but she had already done that three other times. He really should have been bathed properly. His wound really should have been cleaned properly. He really should have been protected _properly_.

But they all had been too busy to even notice that Sam was the only one paying attention. So, yeah, she blamed herself, entirely. She should have been by his side. She should have had his _back_.

She sniffed hard and picked up the bucket from the living room rug, standing up to her full height as she caught sight of the ugly storm clouds coming over the distance. Even if they still had the quinjet, they couldn't have piloted through a storm like the one settling in. Besides, they didn't even know where Peggy had taken Steve… So, for the moment, they were just sitting ducks. Her, Clint, and Sam – more or less.

Nat walked into the kitchen and poured the bloody-dirty water into the sink, staring at the bottom as the last dregs of the contents spun around down into the drain. She set the bucket beside the sink and turned to see Clint standing just outside of the kitchen door on the porch that overlooked the fields around them. His back was facing her, his shoulders pulled tight with a burden only comparable to that of Atlas'. He really needed someone right now. He needed her. _But_ the last thing she wanted to do was talk to him. In fact, _he_ had also been actively avoiding her as it was, and the tension between them – the ugly, sticky, angry feeling that buzzed in the air whenever they were around each other – was hanging through the walls of the house. Natasha knew she couldn't blame him forever.

But that wasn't why she was mad. _You don't have to be a martyr._ His words echoed in her mind like a hypocritical bell banging against the sides of her brain. No, that wasn't why she was mad at all. Clint had believed in the "unspoken power" of their union—they could do no wrong as long as they stood together, right? And then, inadvertently, without asking, took the last chance they had of rescuing Steve and _pulled her down._ He lied when he said it was about them 'staying together,' or whatever the hell he had meant. He had lied to her, broken her trust _completely,_ and then expected her not to be pissed.

That was wrong – of course he had expected her to be pissed. Clint just didn't care if she was. She could still see his tired, emotionally exhausted gaze boring into hers back out on the cliff: _I lost everything today… I'm not about to lose you, too._ Natasha gritted her teeth as she felt his words roll over her, a fresh wave of rage flushing out over her skin. What the fuck did that mean? He didn't get to say shit like that anymore. Not when she had given him all that he had wanted, not when she willingly gave him up. She wasn't _his_ to lose.

Maybe, despite all the tragedy, that's what made her most upset. Her and Clint – they were so many things – redemption, sacrifice, two pieces of the same whole; _partners_ …and even now, she would die for him in an instant. She would sacrifice herself in the blink of an eye, throw herself over a cliff, just so he could _be._ But none of that was enough to change the one key thing here: they didn't belong to each other anymore.

And that's what this was about – trust her, through everything they had endured, to be selfish, to hate him for only wanting to protect her… But that's why she gave him up in the first place – so he didn't have to worry about _ever_ protecting her again. Natasha white-knuckled the counter, scowling at the back of Clint's head. It seemed so damn childish, but – _Jesus Christ –_ how _dare_ he. She slapped the dishtowel she had been fiddling with onto the counter and stalked out onto the porch just as the heavy, stormy rain was beginning to settle over the fields around them.

He was still wearing his bloody shirt from the night before, his family's blood still splattered across him like a Jackson Pollack painting. His brow was deeply furrowed and his eyes distant, hazy. She had seen that look before. It was never a sign things were good. Natasha took a breath before she came to stand beside him, arms crossed over her chest, while she looked down at her boots.

"What's the plan here, Barton?" She asked him, daring to break the uneasy silence between them. "Huh? What's the goddamn plan? I'm guessing you have one since that's the only reason why you would have stopped me in the first place." She said softly, swallowing a lump in the back of her throat. Her words were dripping with an assured, but quiet rage, one that was _barely_ held in check. Her eyes, now suddenly narrowed like razor blades, sharply moved up to scrutinize his face.

Clint's shoulders tensed and he cleared his throat, not even shifting his eyes to look at her. "I'm _not_ gettin' into this with you, Tash." He gruffly spoke, his head doing a little shift that spoke to his denial in 'getting into it' with her. His voice was slightly hoarse from screaming or misuse (or both). Either way, he was clearly not in the mood for any bullshit.

Her expression – an icy mask of resolve – tightened. "I owed him, Barton. He saved my life, and I _owed_ him. I thought of all the people to understand that – you would." Above them, the house shook with the weight of millions of raindrops pounding overhead and rolling off onto the soppy fertile ground. The gutter rattled noisily as the rainwater forcibly flowed into it, making a loud _plopping_ noise as it splashed down.

Natasha watched Clint's face change from indifferent to weary to coldly, brilliantly _angry_. She could tell he had hesitated before giving into his rage – he had asked himself: _is this really worth being pissed over?_ And a part of her, the dark angry part of herself, was glad she could still garner that reaction from him. But another part of her knew it was wrong—why did she have to be such a bitch?

"No." Clint shook his head once, finally, _finally_ turning to look at her. He met her eyes boldly, not afraid to show every ounce of anger, conflict, and guilt that was spread out across his face like the most beautifully tragic painting of all time. Natasha wished, as inappropriate as it might have been, she could have captured him in that moment – so intense, so enraged, feeling _everything_ with her – and save it forever. "No, you don't owe him _anything_." He spat out through gritted teeth. "If Steve wants to go and get himself fucking killed, that's on him, not you."

"Don't lie." Natasha instantly snapped back at him. "That's never stopped you before." Her eyes wildly searching his, probing him to say something else, to say something _more—_ to say what he meant. This wasn't about Steve; this was about them.

Clint cocked his head as if something dropped on the side of his shoulder to keep him from looking straight onwards. He winced at her words, shifting his eyes out of hers. She could tell they were watering…and he didn't want her to see. "That's not…Natasha…" He gasped out a little sob, breathless with his grief as his voice cracked. "That's not what I'm saying. I know you can handle yourself…but…"

"But what – Clint?"

There were tears falling from his eyes. He parted his mouth as if to say something, his eyes agonizingly holding her own. It was as if it _pained_ him to look at her. He wanted to say something, he needed to say something, but then he must have changed his mind… Because he just looked down, refusing to look at her. "Nothing."

Why wouldn't he just _talk_ to her? She slammed her fist against the porch's pillar, not caring how the wood sent tiny splinters into the side of her palm. "Then don't act like you have problem if you can't _fucking_ tellme." Natasha spat through her teeth; her own voice was garbled by the lump of emotion swelling there. He flinched sharply at her voice but didn't move to look up at her.

Well, she had to get the fuck out of this situation. She didn't know what she had been thinking – that something could come out of this? That something fucked up, stupid, and twisted could happen? That Clint would admit to still being– _NO._ She wouldn't go there; she would not put herself _through_ that. Not when she had just torn him apart in the hopes that he would tell her something that _she_ needed to hear, to make _herself_ feel better.

Nat turned sharply and walked down the porch stairs into the storm, knowing that she had her supply of liquor in the back barn's attic where they stacked the hay bales. And she could use a fucking drink. But within seconds of her walking off, Clint raced after her, grabbing her by the arm, and forcing her to look him in the eyes.

"What do you want me to say, Natasha?" The rain was splashing down across his soft features, making him look like the young kid she had met all those years ago, the one that had saved her life. He swallowed _hard_. She could tell he was crying, but so was she. "That I'll let you just go—" he waved his hand across the empty fields as if to gesticulate the emptiness of the house, the looming absence of his family, " _die_?" He shouted at her.

"I want you to tell me the truth." She said with a surprisingly measured voice, blinking the rain out of her eyes. "To be honest with me, Barton."

He took a sharp breath in and his face collapsed, squelched into grief. The true look of a man who had lost everything. "I don't know if I'll ever get over this…" He said softly. A dark rage overcame his face, his brow furrowing, deepening, hanging over his eyes like a gothic structure on Notre Dame. "But I know, _I know…_ that if you died…" He looked down and shook his head. "If you died… I would never… Jesus Christ, Tash – there's no comin' back from that." He finally looked back up to her, meeting her eyes.

They were close to each other now, faces inches apart, both of them breathing heavily as the thunder and rain crashed into one another. The rain was hanging on his eyelashes, dripping down his cheeks like tiny, yet epic rivers rushing down in a mudslide across the fine terrain of his face.

"Ya' happy?" He whispered tensely to her, his face taut with emotion and grief. He was pissed, angry, but above all, he was still in love with her – and he _hated_ himself for it.

Not giving her time to answer, Clint pushed past her to go back into the house. But Natasha didn't want him to walk him away…because she knew, if he walked away, there would be no repairing this…

Heartbroken emotions warred over her face as she debated what to do, and before she could stop it: " _Clint_." She brokenly called to him, stopping him in his tracks. His shoulders hulked over his form and she could tell it was taking him everything within himself not to turn and look at her.

She went to him and grabbed his shoulders, turning him to face her. "I'm sorry." She shook her head with a sad smile. Her eyes were glimmering with all the love in the world for him. She took a shaky breath in, her smile growing into itself, grew wider as she pressed her forehead against his: "I'm sorry that I suck at being a human." She half-laughed, half-cried with a smidge of humor, tears streaking down her face. "But you're the only reason I have a chance at any of this."

Clint held her eyes and a little smile of his own pulled through across his lips. His features were heartbroken—he was still the man who had lost everything—but, despite it all, he was not absent of hope. He slowly came to wrap his arms around her as they held each other, the rain soaking them both completely, but neither of them caring.

"I really love you." She whispered into his neck.

He nodded into hers, shaking – she knew – with sobs. "Me _too_." He whispered back.

* * *

Peggy hadn't said anything for twenty minutes. She had her arms crossed, staring out the window with a cold, indifferent expression on her face. Steve couldn't possibly guess why she was keeping him here, except to terrorize him. He had followed after her trail, after she told him to stop – like she thought he would have _actually_ done that.

"Alright, Peg – what do you want?" He broke the edgy silence between them. He half-expected her to launch into a monologue of her evil plans, but he should have known, by now, it was never that simple with Peggy. Because she didn't even blink, she just kept staring out that damn dirty window.

"What day did you go into the ice, Steve?" Her soft, yet precisive Kensington accent cut through the solid, annihilating silence around them.

Steve watched her, distrustful of her question, but nonetheless answered it: "Valentine's Day – 1945."

"Ironic, isn't it? The day of lovers, and yet you, Bucky, and I, were sprinkled across the continent like confetti." She sadly smiled to herself, her eyes misty and welled-up with the tiniest flicker of tears. "It's tragic, if you think about it—we all lived, in a way...only to see ourselves become other things." In that moment, with the pale, grey light shining across her face, her braid pulled around her shoulder, she looked almost like the Peggy he had known in 1945. There was light on her face, nostalgic emotion remaining from centuries ago… She looked entirely like herself.

But when he finally turned to face him, that tragedy of a smile peeled off of her face and she grew serious, suspicious of him. Her chocolate brown irises that were usually framed by perfectly-shaped, almond eyes were now narrowing onto his face, convinced something was entirely wrong. "Now, darling, I'm going to ask you something, and you have to promise not to lie to me…" She said softly, that tragic, heartbroken little smile reappearing on her face.

Steve laughed dryly. He shrugged in his bound and tied state, grinning up at her bitterly from the chair he was sitting in. "What could you possibly ask, Peggy? After everything you've done, after all the people you've hurt—killed, you're gonna ask _me_ que—"

"Why didn't you land the plane?" She interrupted him, her face once again a mask of merciless ice and unassuming indifference. She was wearing a black sweater and tight-fitting leather pants. At one point, that sweater would have fit perfectly to her curvy figure. Now, it just hung loose… She was strong from the super soldier serum, sure, but he could tell she was malnourished.

Steve frowned deeply, caught off guard by her question. "Land the plane? Peg… _the Valkyrie_?" He raised an eyebrow, trying to figure out why she was possibly bringing this up. "'Cause there was nowhere else to land it – thousands of people would have been killed if I tried to land it somewhere. You _knew_ that."

She crossed her arms, her lip a menacing line of anger. She closed her eyes and brought her hand up to the bridge of her nose, pinching it tightly. "You best not lie, darling—not to me." She mustered in a breathy tone, reopening her eyes to meet his.

"Peggy…" Steve shook his head with a heartbreakingly disappointed look on his face. "I couldn't… There was nowhere to land… _I promise._ " He assured her, not breaking eye contact with her. His blue-green eyes boring into hers, trying to will her to believe him.

At his admission, she stood up and bit the side of her lip with a little puzzled look. She gave a little nod, as if deciding on something, and turned away from him. She walked over to a large table in the corner of the warehouse that was covered with documents, machine guns, weapons, and other miscellaneous items that looked industrial and dangerous. She pulled out a large rolled-up yellowed piece of paper from beneath the pile and then walked back over to Steve. As she yanked the parchment out, Steve came to realize it was a map of…Greenland… The place he had crash-landed in 45'.

Peggy came to a squat on the floor, rolling out the map in its entirety, so he could see it even from his bound position in the chair. "What is this, Steve?" She pointed to a big, black ink circle on the northern side of the large, frozen country.

Steve's stomach dropped and he _knew_ the moment he had always dreaded had come. "Peg…" He begged her, his face falling as his eyes desperately tried to meet hers. But her own gaze was still stuck placidly on the map beneath her fingers.

"What is it?" She suddenly snapped, looking up at him from below. Tears were viscerally quivering in her eyes. And there, deep within her bright brown irises lay a truth so heavy and sad, Steve knew she didn't want it to be true. But even so, she knew it was. Her eyes, frozen on him in a panicked heartbreak, were quaking with emotion, but her face was tense and tight with rage, an ancient and resentful anger. _"Answer me!"_ She screamed at him and the warehouse around them shook with her temper. Her power was leaking into the formation around them, shaking the very ligaments of the building.

Steve closed his eyes and looked down, taking a shaky breath in, before he started speaking. "It was a base…" His voice cracked in agony, and it said _everything_. It spoke of eons of regret, guilt, and rotten, unspoken despair. "It's a landing base near Nord… It was used especially for air-landing emergencies back in the War."

"And was Nord's airbase functioning on the day you crash landed?" She asked, her voice torn apart with devastation.

Steve couldn't look at her. "Peggy…" He broke open, his emotions flowing down his face right along with his tears. "Please…" He sobbed.

She walked over to him, slapping him unearthly hard across the face. "Answer. The. Question." She breathily whispered to him, the shock on her face was all he needed to see. " _Why didn't you land the plane?"_ She sobbed to him, grabbing him by the shoulders and forcing him to look up at her. " _WHY DIDN'T YOU LAND IT?!"_ She screamed into his face. He could feel the cords of power ringing in his ears from her scream. There was a vast torment that was tangled in her voice, like she had thought about this question for centuries…and still, with all her power and resources, couldn't put it together.

"Because…" He shook his head. "I didn't…" He was shaking with his own sobs, closing his eyes tightly as his body was wracked with emotion. He thought of that cold Valentine's Day sunset when he saw the compass telling him to go north, to go towards the Nord landing base… But he couldn't. He couldn't bring himself to try…not when there was so much at risk, not when trying anything would have been stupid.

But the fact that the two people he loved most had been taken, used, manipulated, tortured, and crushed beyond repair… He knew now, it was entirely his fault. "I didn't want to give you false hope." His body was shaking with the weight of his unholy, heavy, _fucking_ shame. "I didn't wanna try and fail." He whispered to her, brokenly. "It's better just to die a hero than die trying to save yourself." He shrugged weakly as he collapsed into his sobs. "I'm sorry, Peg… _I'm so sorry_ …" He sniffed hard and forced himself to look up at her, snot and salty tears were running down his face, mixing with the blood that had been there from when he cut his tooth—he really was a mess. His hair was uncombed, wild, the beard on his face was thick and unclean. No one, besides Peggy, had ever seen him like this.

How was it that she always caught him in his worst moments? Separated for 70 years, and still, only she had seen the worst of him. Everyone else only got pieces and parts of a good guy who didn't get the chance to live, who lost both the great loves of life…and was only now, trying to find a way to piece it all back together. But Peggy—

 _We have to allow James the dignity of his choice._

 _We can find a way to work out…_

 _A smile that could erase all digression, explanation, and thought. A smile that could change the course of time. A smile that could rewrite Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, and instead, tell you a different, happier, and still, more tragic story. A smile that could end wars,_ his _war._

 _The War's over, Steve, we can go home…_

he would build them a house on a hill – him her and bucky – and they would all live in this big, beautiful house by a lake. away from the wars of time, space, and reality, they would live outside of it all. they would be together for all of time, the three of them, having lived through hell, heaven, and purgatory, could live through everything and forever. if only they had the time,

if only he hadn't ruined

 _everything_

Peggy stood back to her full height, but Steve couldn't bring himself to look up at her face. He could only look down at her boots. "So, you were a coward." Her voice broke through clear and clean, detached and disassociated, her lovely accent gone…only to be replaced with the mechanical one she had trained herself into using. He looked up and saw that, once again, she was a mask of ice and cold empty emotions.

It had been an act, again… He had fallen for it _again_. She had pulled him apart, found what she wanted, and then left him in pieces when she was done. He was still shaking, crying over this egregious mistake he could never undo. Because even though she had made him admit, for the sake of her own sadistic pleasure or whatever the hell it had been, his greatest regret, his greatest fuck-up… He still knew it was his fault this was even happening. If he just had landed the plane, if he just had _tried,_ instead of being such a goddamn self-sacrificing asshole… Then maybe this wouldn't even be happening.

"Well, Steve," her eyes blank as she looked down onto him like some royally cruel queen of the medieval ages, "all we can do is our best." She squatted down to meet his eyes, yanking his face in her hands to hold her gaze. "And sometimes, the best we can do is start over."

* * *

Sam woke up to streaming beams of sunlight pouring into the living room of Barton's Farmhouse. He was propped up onto a pullout bed, tucked in with scratchy, but warm sheets. And by the smell of it, he was pretty sure someone had gone through the trouble of washing his blackass. Well, that was nice of em'.

Natasha was sleeping beside him on the couch's pullout bed. Despite everything, he couldn't help but smile gently at the sight – this lithe, powerful assassin curled up in a fetal position with her back to him. Even when she slept, she was a little ball of tension and potential…ready to go at any moment. He slid back down into the covers, curling up against her so his chest was resting up against her back…he could really just go back to sleep for another randomass amount of time… Natasha was warm, and she smelled so uniquely like _herself…_ it was intoxicating. He was just starting to doze off, when he realized –

 _Wait_ – what the hell happened? He instantly shot back up – well, that was an exaggeration – he tried to sit back up and his leg sent powerful, excruciating pains down his entire body. He bit down murderously on his lip, trying to keep himself quiet so Nat could sleep as he lifted up sheet and the looked down at his leg that had been heavily wrapped up in bandages.

Damn that crazy bitch did a _number_ on him.

"Nat…" He rolled over on his good side, wincing from the pain in his leg, and tenderly touched the back of Natasha's head.

The assassin opened her eyes with a small, frustrated _hmph_ and rolled over to face him. Softly, she lifted her head and came to rest it on his upper chest that was propped up against a mound of pillows, while her hands crossed over him, so she was holding him lightly against herself. As she resettled, she closed her eyes once more and let out a hot, little breath. "You couldn't stay in your coma for another five minutes?"

Sam smirked at her with a modest, yet affectionate expression coming to his face. "Sorry to disappoint ya', hot stuff." Nat opened her eyes to look up and meet his bright brown ones. The emotion that was there, nestled within her eyes, the joy and relief, in seeing him alive and _okay_ … It was _real_. And he could tell, within her soft and purposeful movements, she was showing him her love in the only way she knew how. He could imagine, if she had been anything like she was with Barton when he got fucked up by the KGB, then she probably had spent night-and-day doting on him.

Wow. Why did this moment have to ever end? The two of them, framed in golden sunlight, caught in the soft glow of the morning sun. This made sense – this moment, this tiny fragment of sanity within the craziness of their life, it made goddamn sense.

"I'm glad you're alive, Sam." Natasha whispered in his ear, kissing his cheek with a gentle touch that spoke tomes of her devotion. His heart swelled as a smile spread across his face as he met her eyes. They held their gazes for a moment together, smirking at the one another just because they could.

"I mean, I can't complain about that, either." He winked at her with a little mischievous twinkle in his eye, despite the exhaustion that hung on his face. "What's goin' on, Natasha? What happened? Where's Steve?"

At that, Nat's face dropped the smile she had been forcing for Sam's sake, and dipped her head deeper underneath his chin, tightening her arms around him. He could feel the tension in her shoulders as he brought up Steve. "He's gone… She took him."

Sam straightened himself instantly, painfully pulling himself up by twisting the couch sheets underneath him. "What the fuck do you mean she _took_ him?"

"Well, after she kicked the shit out of you, man, she came for Steve." Clint who had just walked down the stairs, then, came to stand in the living room. He leaned up against a wall and watched Sam and Natasha from the opposite side of the room. He had, obviously, just showered and well, while Sam had seen Clint look better – he _did_ look better, more relieved, _lighter_. Sam was glad to see the guy could take a breath without breaking down.

"So, he's just— _what_? Gone? And neither of you have done anything?" He looked back and forth between the two of them, his face shifting from appalled to shocked and then back again.

Natasha pulled herself up from Sam and sat on the side of the pullout bed, running her hands through her short blonde hair. "Well, we don't have the quinjet, _Samuel_ —she took that too." From the use of his full-name and the half-joking smile on her face, Sam could tell she was teasing him. The little devious twinkle in her green eyes also said something else, too, but he couldn't think about _that_ right now…

Or _why_ she was looking at him like that…

It felt good, though, the three of them talking about this, taking this on. They would think of something; they would get Steve back.

"So, what the fuck do we _have_?" He lifted his arms up with a 'wtf?' motion. "And how do you know she won't just kill him?!"

Natasha sighed tiredly, as if she knew this was coming, and shook her head, crossing her arms across her chest. "She won't."

"How do you know?" Sam snapped, watching her expression with an incredulous look on his face.

At that, the assassin looked up at him and met his eyes. "I've been in her position." She shifted her gaze to meet Clint's – the man who had helped her escape the KGB, the man who had stopped her from losing herself completely in the madness and the blood and the gore, the man who had changed everything for her – "She won't kill him because he's her endgame. She's wanted him this whole time. So, no, she doesn't want to kill him, not when she finally has him."

Sam scoffed at her reply. "That's bettin' a whole lot on shared life experience, Natasha."

Natasha frowned at Sam's words, her brow furrowing as she looked sideways to a framed painting hanging on the wall that Lila had done when she was younger. "Wait… Shared life experience…" She instantly shifted her gaze sharply back up to Clint's. "Yelena Belova – the only other trainee to ever score as high as me in Black Widow Ops – you remember?"

Clint nodded affirmatively, frowning slightly at her whopping topic change.

Natasha leaped out of the pull-out bed, then, barely missing Sam's face as she literally flew over the couch. She ran to her crumpled combat pants on the left side of the room. The drive. The drive that Yelena had given her – she still had it. And if she was right, she could find exactly what she was looking for.

She fished the drive out of her pants' pocket and hooked it into her phone. "Come on…come on…" The Stark Tech phone clicked on as a holographic keyboard settled out before the three of them. She typed madly onto the translucent keys, rebooting the database's system to give her access. And as soon as the international KGB database popped up, she went to work: "Belova, Yelena Ana." She typed in, at first, finding her friend and ex-partner fairly quickly.

"Uh Tash – not that I'm not enjoying watching you, you know, go all Inspector Gadget on us, but what are you doin'?" Clint called to her.

Natasha felt the tension tighten in her gut as she pulled up Yelena's file, scanning through it quickly. And just as she expected, she was right… Yelena, _her_ Yelena, went on a covert combat mission in 2000, and returned a year later with no _clear_ memory of the events from before then. She remembered that… She remembered how unconvinced she was, at first, Yelena was no longer herself. It was as if she had been replaced by someone else. She looked like her, talked like her, _fought_ like her…but something never sat right about her. She wasn't _dirty_ enough to be a Russian assassin. She wiped her hands off like they were prim and proper, she cleaned her knives with soap, and she kept her hair short.

But then again, Natasha had only been 15 at the time. If she would have told Alexi, 18 then, he wouldn't have believed her. It would have been thought of as simply her own mind playing tricks on her.

Now, she knew what she had always known. The Yelena that became her friend, her partner, the one she had planned to escape with – that was never the original Yelena.

The original Yelena had been dead, probably, for almost twenty years. "Carter was behind Alexi's death." She said softly, sitting back on her haunches.

Sam and Clint seemed to be holding their breath, avoiding eye contact, not knowing how to react to that shocking bit of news. Natasha ignored them and stood up; her face lost in a thousand revelations. She covered her lips as her expression became a nervous, thoughtful gaze, as she began to pace. "She had access to alpha mesh – that's the only way she would have been able to do it… She was using that stuff for years…" She explained to herself more than either of them. "We know she was behind Pepper's death, she killed Alexi, she killed Clint's family…" She stopped in the middle of the room, her face going white.

"Oh, my God…" She turned sharply to look at Sam and Clint. She met Sam's eyes, desperate, terrified. "Why kill Steve Rogers," she shook her head, "when you can just _ruin_ him?"

Clint frowned. "Nat, what are you saying?"

"She's not gonna kill Steve, she just doesn't plan on letting anyone he loves live."

Sam and Natasha both locked eyes at the same time. "Bucky."


	18. Moving Mountains

**EARTH – 4,543,000,000,000 BC**

Earth 4.543 billion years ago was _cold._ But a different kind of cold than what one is used to in the winter months or from stepping into an icy blast of AC – this was a cold that was fresh, new, vibrant, _cutting._ It was the only temperature that had ever existed – warmth wasn't even a conceived notion to this newborn planet. Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring – seasons on a calendar that didn't exist. The rocks beneath Peggy's body had barely come together in a cataclysmic clash of gas, dust, and rock. The stars above her were bright, too bright – the moon was too close in the sky, a large domineering giant that lorded over Earth – nothing could have existed here.

Even the soil she rested on wasn't really considered 'soil' since dirt was made from organic compounds. Mostly, it was compounded dust and ash from stars and space rock slamming into itself eons before Earth had even existed. Yes, the world around her was fresh, and yet, it had never felt more _dead_. There was not a living creature yet to this soggy, rocky, frozen little blue planet, and the silence around Peggy seemed to be a creature of its own… _deafening,_ complete, and total.

 _This is what the Titan will leave me with._ She thought sadly as she gazed into the early morning sky, spread-eagle with her arms and legs flailed out around her in exhaustion. _Silence so complete, nothing will stir from it._

Looking down on her, one could tell Peggy's nose must have been profusely bleeding earlier, as the blood was still dried beneath it, the tracks of crimson were crusty over the dust and dirt that was stuck to her skin. She weakly turned her head from its position on the ground to stare at the small, rounded mountain range forming over the western hemisphere of the earth. It would have been a sight for the movies, really. The truly spectacular vista before her of those jagged snowy mountains, fresh and new from Ailis' handiwork, were blossoming, splitting across the sky into the grey-pink colors of the sunrise. _Funny enough, I'm older than them…_

Peggy rolled over onto her side and with a grunt of effort, pulled herself up into a feeble sitting-position. Her legs were thrown out in front of her, spread as if she was ready to catch a child's rolling ball. She ran a hand through her thinning curls, feeling the tremors of desperate hunger bleed into her muscles.

It was only a matter of time now. She sighed and looked down, a small, bitterly amused smile blooming over her lips. She chuckled, a dry papery sound that burst from her throat. Bucky would have loved the sheer ridiculousness of this entire situation. Steve was the anchor to the both of them – being humbled and steadied by the ground beneath his boots, but Bucky and her, they were always searching beyond the horizon, eyes raised, and breath baited… They looked to the sky, while Steve looked for what was before. He wouldn't have believed the things she had seen, the places she had been…

But Bucky would have given her his ear, bright blue eyes wide and ready for the story she could give him. And that _smile… That smile he would have given her…_

"Don't tell me those tears are for me, Peg—" That _voice._ She swallowed her breath andturned sharply to see James himself, standing before her. He was dressed in his green, fresh-pressed uniform. His hat adorably tilted to the left as if he was picture-ready to be the poster boy for the 1945 WWII propaganda tour. He looked _whole._ Unbroken, untorn. He looked like _Bucky._ That kid from Brooklyn, the kid she had fallen in love with. She was suddenly up, barely able to stand from her malnourishment, and even though it must have been damn-near impossible to run—she did, unthinkingly—to him…if only to be hold him close…if only to be near him.

She grabbed him up into her arms, holding him close to her as the tears – tears that had been silent and closeted for centuries – appeared in her luminous brown eyes. "Don't flatter yourself…" Peggy choked out a little broken laugh, not daring to pull away from him even as she joked. "I don't cry over silly American boys in uniform."

Bucky, gently chuckling, came to tighten his own arms around her, burying his face into her mussed and tousled curls. She could _smell_ that warm, buttery scent that clung deep to his skin as if he had just stepped out of a bakery. "Don't kid me, Peg" – she could hear the tenderness in is tone, along with the smile that must have been fastening itself to his lips – "this may be the beginning of the world as history knows it," he pulled away just enough to rest his chin on top of her head to look out over the stunning sunrise dawning across the newborn Earth, "but it sure ain't the beginning of anything for _either_ of us. You and I…we see each other...always…"

* * *

Natasha paced the length of Barton's living room as she tried to reach Shuri through the emergency line the princess had given her. She tapped her fingers anxiously against the wall that connected the kitchen and the living room, waiting while the line dialed back-and-forth across continents.

"C'mon, Princess, what's the point of having access to the greatest tech in the world, if you don't answer the _phone_?" She hissed into the Bluetooth.

Sam had taken to sitting off the edge of the pull-out bed as he and Clint fumbled to get his shoes on. "Man, get the hell out of here – I can tie my own damn shoes."

"Well, obviously not because you're doing it wrong." Clint argued.

"Barton, how long do you think I've been tying my shoes?"

"Uhm apparently, _never._ " At Clint's snide comment, a knife was thrown an inch away from his ear and into the wall behind him as Natasha made a 'zip-it' motion – or a 'shut the fuck up' motion, rather – with her hand. Shuri had finally answered. Clint and Sam both became deathly silent as they stared with big-wide, guilty eyes at Natasha as she turned away from them, holding her other ear closed as if to keep out the noise.

"Agent Romanoff, I am surprised you're calling, you realize there is an international manhunt for you and your companions?"

Natasha wasn't surprised about the manhunt, but apparently, neither was Shuri as she could hear her smirk through the phone. "Shuri, you're only in trouble if they _catch_ you." She tried to joke as she knew the next words out of her mouth would be brunt with serious, grim intensity. It seemed to work as the princess was laughing as Natasha sharply delivered: "Princess, listen, that assassin—Margaret Carter—the woman Rogers and Barnes both… She's coming for Barnes; she's armed, dangerous, and, if given the chance, she will _kill_ everyone in her way."

* * *

When Steve woke some indiscriminate time later, he knew he was dying. The stab wound in his gut was infected. Not to mention, he could feel the hollowed, sucking feeling from the internal wound. He needed professional help – not just a couple of ACE bandages. He lifted his head from his chest and felt a wave of heavy, uneven sickness wash over him – he was going to hurl. His vision tunneled as he leaned over to vomit up what little he had eaten before Peggy had captured him.

Whatever it had been, it now was tinted-pink from his blood. Great. Always a good sign.

He coughed heavily, a little blood splattering on his chin. Great. Also, a good sign.

"Peggy…" He whispered weakly, leaning his head back against the steel back of the chair. "Peggy…" He called again, twisting his head around to look for her. She was behind him, at the table across the room, stuffing things into an army-green backpack. She looked up at the sound of his voice. Her face grew unearthly serious as she grabbed the pack and swung it around her shoulder.

Coming to stand before him, Peggy crossed her arms and eyed the wound in his gut. It didn't look good. The ashy, black blood drying around it was definitely not a good sign. "You have about a day left if I don't fix that, hm?" She cocked her head, an icy expression like ancient, uncrackable marble had settled across her features.

"Were you planning on fixing it?" Steve asked her with a murderously angry look on his face. "I'm surprised I even made it this far. I thought you'da shot me with one of those M16 rifles. That's why everyone calls you that now a days, isn't it?" A smile that was bent out of place, restraining against some broken little piece of himself was beginning to grow across his face. "Because you murder everyone with that goddamn gun."

"No, they call me that, Steven, because I'm _good_ at murdering everyone with that goddamn gun." She rolled her eyes and walked over to him, yanking his bandages off with a clean flick of her hand. This wasn't the first time she had done this. Although her face remained fairly expressionless at the sight of his wound, he could tell from her eyes that there was a _certainty_ that had seemed to appear there. She was absolutely sure of something. And judging by the sickening pus-filled hole in his stomach, it had something to do with _that_.

"If you're gonna kill me, Peg, will you just do it, please?" Steve exasperatedly asked her.

Peggy instantly jerked her eyes away from the stab wound. Her eyes stayed on his for a moment, searching his face, searching for…for… _something_? Or did he just imagine that look? Or was she just faking again? He would never fucking know. "I don't want to kill you, Steve." She pulled a bottle of Jack from the side of her pack and poured it over Steve's wound.

Steve's entire body spasmed from the magnetic, excruciating pain. He felt like every nerve ending was on fire… _everything was on fire…_ He felt the world go yellow, gold, tunneled, and pink, before he managed to come back to himself. Peggy was busy wrapping his wound up in crisp, white bandages. "If you… If you…don't…want to… Why the _hell_ did you…stab…me?" He gasped out through labored, shallow breaths.

Peggy ripped off the end of the bandage with her teeth, tucking it neatly between the other wrappings and looked up at him. Her eyes met his, brown pressed up against blue. "Bucky." She said plainly.

At the mention of his boyfriend, Steve's entire world – despite the pain, the stomach-aching agony (literally), the labored movements – tilted 180 degrees. He tried to breathe. He couldn't. It kept catching in his throat, which was suddenly swelling. He tried to speak; he couldn't. He tried to swallow; he couldn't. In fact, he couldn't do anything but feel a fresh, breathtaking wave of terror wash over him. "No." He murmured. "Not… Don't…"

She was standing, suddenly, towering over him, rising above him like a symbol of a coming Apocalypse. "You know, my darling, it never bothered me," she shrugged, her eyes shifting to the windows above them. The grey light was casting thousands of different shades of color across her face. Each one more lovely, more defining then the next. Anyone would have been mesmerized by how light bended across her features but looking at her was like looking into the sun for too long – asking to be blinded. "It never bothered me that James was your favorite… I think at the time, I just wanted to love you in whatever way you would let me…and that meant accepting Bucky as a part of your life. After all, I was just happy to be with you." She cocked her head from side-to-side as if considering something, her tongue running out over her lips as if deep in thought. "But you know," a small smile rife with thoughtful consequence pulled at the ends of her lips, "I fell in love with Bucky, too." Her exquisitely expressive eyes were suddenly back on him. "And suddenly, I was the luckiest girl in the world…as I had been blessed with two great loves.

There was _nothing_ more important to me than the two of you. In fact, I made a promise, once, a long time ago." Her eyes were clouded with memory, lost in a distant past. "I would protect you," those eyes, flecked with gold and silver and bronze, metals forged from a lifetime of agony, heartbreak, and silence, shifted to Steve's, locking on his with an impossibly powerful look, "at whatever the cost." She turned and began walking towards the eastern wall of the warehouse.

Steve felt something slide out of place, some dreaded and heavy thing shift out of his gut, a vast tension split apart. _Wait._ His mind began racing at 5 million miles an hour. "Peggy…?" He was gasping, trying to breathe, trying to make his mouth catch up with his brain. "Wait… _WAIT…_ PEGGY." He called to her, urging his words to snag her by the shoulder and force her to face him.

She couldn't leave. _She couldn't leave._

"PEGGY – _STOP!"_ He was violently screaming after her, even as she slipped through a door that opened up through the wall.

 _PEGGGYYYYY PEGGGYYYY YOU CAN'T YOU CAN'T NOOOOOOO HE'S YOU CAN'T PEGGYYYYY STOP IT PLEASSSSEEEEE PEGGY NO NO NO NO BUCKKKKYYYY NOOOOOOO PEGGYYYYY PEGGGYYYY NOOOOO SOMEONE HELP ME PLLLEEEAASSSEEE PEGGGYYYYYYYYYY_

At some point, his chair flipped over, his head painfully cracking against the concrete floor.

PEGGYYYYYYYYYYYY

At some point, his voice stopped working, silent screams could only be heard resonating through the thick silence around him.

 _peggy_

At some point, he started shivering, quivering from a chill that began settling in with the infection.

 _Puh – puh – puh – egg - G G yyyyyy_

At some point, Steve Rogers, a sobbing, shaking mess, lost consciousness and fell into a feverish dream of a curly-haired little girl running into his arms as he encircled her, protecting her from the masses of destruction that circled around them.

… _peggyyyy…._

* * *

 **JUNE 2011**

Peggy. Her name was _Peggy_ and she was alive _._

She round-kicked a magician in the face. He was taken aback by her sudden physical attack when they had been merely fighting with their telekinetic powers. They floated ten feet off the ground, levitating over the main courtyard of Kamar-Taj. Her sparring partner's eyes narrowed as a bright and brilliant smile was beginning to form over her features as the fight intensified. Her name was Peggy and she was _alive._

The magician crushed his fist and palm together sending her tumbling through the sky, but she came to a stop in mid-air, grinning up at him. Her name was Peggy and _she_ was alive _._ The natural elements around them were bending to their will. She wondered… She frowned for a moment in thought as her partner was getting into position to send her spiraling to the earth, but she wasn't ready to give up just yet. If the air was holding them…could she use the gravity within it as a stepping stone…? She'd have to trust her gut. The glowing light suddenly emanating from her fellow warlock's fingers was a good indication of how much time she had left.

Just as the magician threw a powerful ball of orange glowing energy, she leaped upwards and forced her power to spread out around her, connecting and linking with the gravity and elements in the air. She could see it – for a split moment – a translucent, see-through stepping stone forming up as her feet came to land on it. And then, brilliantly, as she moved, so did her power. The invisible steps lined up with her movements, so she came to rise above her shocked opponent. She smirked down on him. _Her_ _name_ _was Peggy_ She leaped off her makeshift air steps and rocketed downwards, socking her opponent across the face, shoving him into the earth. _and she was_ ALIVE _._

Peggy levitated down to the cobblestones, smirking at her partner who groaned weakly from below. She offered him a hand, a warm and amused twinkle glittering there in her eyes. The magician took it with an eyeroll, but he was a friend of Peggy's – he wasn't really upset. Everyone knew Peggy was one of the most talented students within Kamar-Taj. Even if she wasn't a sorcerer, she made up for it with her wickedly good physical attacks and even wilder telekinetic abilities.

"You know, one of these days, Peggy Carter, I will beat you." The magician teased the telekinetic.

Peggy chuckled. "Mmm…whatever helps you get to sleep at night, my love." She winked at him as she grabbed up her boots. Years ago, Peggy would never had fought barefoot, but she rather enjoyed it now, her toes free help her balance and her heel all the more readily available to break someone's nose. Ailis, or the 'Ancient One' as many of the sorcerers called her, had explained to Peggy that when fighting against magicians, it was important to know where your center of power came from. Apparently, the human body had an already naturally built-in intuitive sense as to where the center of its own power and energy resonated from. Allowing for one's skin to be exposed could only _help_ the magician find where their center of balance was. In other words, the best way to know where your power sat was to fight absolutely bare-arsed nude.

Now, given that you couldn't fight a bloody war naked, Peggy had settled for not wearing socks. And she had to say, after decades of wearing heavy combat boots for hours upon hours every day, not having to put on boots was damn-near miraculous.

She walked through the main temple's archway, rounding the corner to walk towards her room. She had been at Kamar-Taj for about five months, now. In exchange for nearly destroying the Time Stone, Ailis had wanted her to learn to 'hone' her power. Peggy, at the time, hadn't gone quietly. She didn't want to learn how to control her ability – it had just always been a part of her. And as silly as it sounds, it wasn't as if she thought of it as 'extraordinary.' She used it when she needed it, but never in excess. Ailis had seemed to think differently. _Your ability had left you as an untamed, undefined force of nature, Margaret, you cannot just allow a force of nature to sit, to stale, to be_ undefined.

So, five months later, she was still here, still learning, training, and fighting. She had to chuckle because between all the fine-tuning and physical training, she hadn't noticed that Ailis had made her _remember_ what it was like to grow. For the first time, she felt change coming over her body. Her monstrously powerful muscles softened in distinction as food began to cling to her body once more. Her sunken eye sockets from sleepless weeks on the job began to fill. Her eyes – dead and flat – brightened at moments of contention with her fellow students, in training, while reading how to focus her power. She felt like a massive tree that had been dead for centuries that had finally woken up, stiff at first, but slowly beginning to branch forth once more.

Though it was all charming, and Peggy did come to find herself liking it here, she knew HYDRA was waiting. They hadn't given her a radio or a tracker for this particular mission per her request – "I'm going to steal a bloody mythical fairy stone; must you _always_ interfere?" – but Alexander Pierce, her liaison, would be searching for her. They wouldn't raid Kamar-Taj as they feared the Ancient One, Ailis, and all her magicians. They were creatures of darkness and hidden spaces, Ailis would only fight them in the light of the day, and they wouldn't dare step into the unmerciful rays of her consequence.

She needed to go back. Soon.

As she entered her room, she threw her boots down beside her cot and walked over to the bathroom, if you could call it that. Some spell had inhibited the natural wall from solidifying so the view of the snow-capped Himalayan Mountains that nestled Kamar-Taj all around was both magnificent and terrifying. Showering in the warmth and protected heat of the fortress, while having the view of massive stone giants was something only the magicians of Kamar-Taj would enjoy.

Peggy stripped and stepped into the steaming shower, washing the sweat from her body as the warm water cleansed her tensed muscles. She looked down at herself – at the body HYDRA had given her. Her legs were something out of bloody science-fiction. Massive trunks of power, grace, and chiseled muscle. She could probably run a marathon and never break a sweat. Impressive? Sure. Peggy thought it was absolute lunacy.

Her abdomen was no different – six perfectly cut abdominals forked across her chest – and her arms, a bloody mess of triceps, biceps, forceps, etc. Muscles bulged in places she hadn't known were places that could _look_ like that. The only thing that didn't startle her were her breasts – those, for some god-saving reason, had stayed relatively the same throughout everything. Supple, lovely, and full – they reminded her of the womanhood she still had, the woman she still _was…_

Because yes, she may have been a human edifice of super soldier serum, dominance, and lethal grace, she was still herself. She was still Peggy Carter. She looked up into the showerhead, pressing her forehead against the heated salt stones of the shower, looking out onto the massive peak of Mount Everest, rising above all the rock giants around her. Both of them giants of some form, and yet, both of them statements of accomplishment.

 _You're being a bit too poetic, Carter._ She could hear Emi's feathery-sweet chuckle in her ear. Her soft-featured grin glowing across her face. Peggy's heart skipped at the thought of her.

 _Emi._ She missed her madly. Now that she had finally begun to defrost, thaw out from the ice of HYDRA's clutches, she could fully begin to realize her feelings for Emilie were solid, sharp, and real enough to _drown her._ If they lived, the two of them, through all of this, she would free Emilie from HYDRA – bring her to Kamar-Taj where her soul could finally be at peace.

She turned off the water and stepped out of the glass shower, grabbing a towel that hung over the rack by her sink. With a fluent motion, she dried off her body, before wrapping up her hair and walked out into her bedroom. She wasn't surprised when she saw Ailis sitting in the chair by her window. Perhaps anyone else would have been ashamed in that situation, but Ailis had seen all of Peggy's life, split her body and soul apart, and then pieced her back together again – she knew her quite literally, inside and out. She gave Ailis a little nod, before she went about her evening routine, finding a clean pair of pants and a shirt.

Ailis' head glimmered in the pale light of the overcast evening sky, cocking her head as she watched Peggy for a long moment. She finally spoke once Peggy had thrown a shirt on and had taken to brushing out her hair. "Mordo tells me you're coming along quite well with your studies."

"Ah, did he tell you I threw him across the sky?" She smirked coyly in the mirror Ailis, who sat behind her.

"In a matter of speaking." Ailis offered her, what Peggy thought, was a smile, but she could never really be sure with her ancient teacher. She was quite expressionless, most of the time.

The two were silent then, Peggy had finished brushing her hair, the curls that had long since been absent were beginning to furl around her face once more. In a few more weeks, perhaps they would be back to their old state. She came to sit across from Ailis, propping her feet up on the cot near her. Her eyes studied her teacher's face as she seemed deep in thought. She was exquisite, truly. All sharp, curved, and fine features that managed to radiate an impossible strength, while still managing to never really be dangerously angular. Since entering, her room had begun to smell like Ailis – fresh rain, jade, and myrrh – refined, but uncut, undefined but never overpowering.

"Did you have need of me?"

"Your training – it's nearly over." Ailis said softly, her eyes stayed transfixed in the distance, lost in thought.

Peggy frowned. Of course, she had known, but she hadn't wanted to admit it yet… At least, not in the open, not out loud. "Ah, so it's time for me to leave."

"Not yet." Ailis smirked cunningly. A wretchedly terrible little mischief she was. "One more threshold to pass, I'm afraid."

"One more, hm?"

"It's the hardest one."

"I was planning on it."

Ailis' smirk grew into a crooked, unearthly knowing smile. "We leave tomorrow at first light."

* * *

She came.

She landed in Wakanda.

She killed…so… _many…_

* * *

 **JUNE 2011**

True to her word, that next morning, Peggy met Ailis in the courtyard of the main temple. Her mentor was standing beneath the ancient Indian Cedar that was planted in the middle of the courtyard. Those crazy green eyes – concocted of secrets, magic, and power – were staring upwards at the hulking mountains around them. Peggy also found herself staring. It was not often she got a chance to admire anything, let alone _live_ within this vast, exquisite mountain range. How could something stay so hidden, so cloistered, yet know so much about the world? Because despite the spells and mythical nonsense that protected the mystical fortress from the eyes of the normal man, Kamar-Taj wouldn't have been easily spotted simply by its placing within the Himalayas.

Keeping her eyes on Ailis' side profile, she came to stand by her mentor, eyeing her up as she did. She had left behind her typical yellow garb for a vibrant blue robe, intricate knots and ties weaving in-and-out of the fabric, so that the massive knot in the back became a thing of complex beauty. Peggy wondered how long it had taken her to tie it all together.

"Where are we off to?" She asked as she sought her teacher's eyes.

Ailis' eyes didn't move themselves off the focal point above them. Peggy turned to look at where the Ancient One seemed to be looking to, only to notice her eyes rested on the dizzying height of Everest, rising above them like a behemoth. "Fancy taking a picture?" Peggy joked, turning away from the mountain.

There was a small, cheeky laugh that resonated from her mentor as she finally seemed to come back to herself. "When you have lived as long as I have, Margaret Carter, you come to learn pictures never truly capture what you see." She winked at Peggy before she offered her a small, callused hand. "Come, we have things to do."

Peggy eyed it cautiously before she took it. "What? Are we to have a prayer circle—" Peggy's words were suddenly cut off as the world began to spin out of control. The courtyard, the mountains, the icy world around them, began to spin away as the world seemed to _shift._ Everything around them grew blurry, the shapes and objects of buildings and people sped by so fast Peggy had barely time to register they were actually _there._

What was happening?

She turned sharply to look at Ailis for reassurance, only to shockingly realize, the green, mystical light emanating from her mentor's fingertips was the mark of the Time Stone. The Eye of Agamotto was slid open to reveal the glowing emerald within. They weren't going somewhere, they were going _back_ in time. And based on the blurry shapes around them that formed and disappeared so quickly not even the trained eye could catch sight of them, they were going back _back_ in time.

"Ailis…" She whispered, both hands clutching to her teacher's now. "Where… What are we…?"

The world around them was suddenly burning, orange and hot glowing light flashed around them. Peggy could almost feel the molten heat glowing off of the fresh lava around them. For a split second, she thought she could see the screams of a animals, beasts, something in the distance… But if she had felt anything, it was gone in an instant. The world – a blurry and unfocused mess – was grey and soggy, again. Then there was _ice._ Ice grew up against their protective little bubble, ice grew beneath their feet, and ice coated everything the eye could see. An _Ice Age._ Peggy thought with sudden clarity.

Where were they _going?_

And before she could question further, the world stopped spinning and time stopped moving. They were standing on an empty beach of sorts. Except the water was black, the sand was some form of grey ashy substance, and the sick green color beginning to poke through the ashen rocks beneath their feet must have been some kind of prehistoric grass… If this could still be considered prehistoric.

"Ailis, where are we?" Peggy asked, a little afraid of the answer.

"Why, my child, we never left." She smirked at her and began to walk along the black beach, leaving Peggy behind her.

Peggy didn't much like that. She ran after her. "What do you mean we never _left_? What is this bloody wasteland?" She waved her hand over the barren landscape to gesticulate what she meant.

"You're asking the wrong question." Ailis kept walking, ignoring Peggy to an extent as she didn't look over at her. "It's not a matter of what or where, Margaret."

"The wrong bloody…" She stopped and cocked her head; a deeply troubled frown grew over her pensive face. Not a matter of what or where…but –"When. When's the question, isn't it?"

Ailis stopped, then, finally finding Peggy's words worth commenting on. She turned to look at her student, a sly smile was weaving itself across her features. "The beginning. The _very_ beginning – the first day Earth ever _truly_ existed."

Peggy's eyes widened and her heart slammed forward into her throat. "And why are we here?"

Her teacher didn't answer, just offered her a small coy smile that seemed to speak tomes of a language Peggy didn't understand.

Peggy couldn't help but chuckle at the sheer incredulity of all this. They were standing in the place where about 5 billion years into the future, Kamar-Taj would be, and all Ailis had to say about it was some mystical, fairy bollocks. Of course, why would she have expected anything less? She plopped down onto the ashen sand? – was it even sand? – she turned her fingers through it, feeling the silky and sharp edges of it fall through her hands. It definitely wasn't some form of sediment.

How were they even here? How could the Time Stone send them so far back into the past? How could Ailis risk changing the fate of the future, by bringing them so far into the past that it could entirely change the basic evolution of humanity. She stood up and walked over to the water, only to realize it wasn't entirely normal, either. It was some form of hydrogen-oxygenated-based fluid that would, someday, with the right amount of chemicals and nitrogen in the air become water, but for the moment, it was a sludgy black liquid. Peggy ran her hand through it, pulling it out quickly to realize the black sludge stuck to her fingers like _glue._ Well, that's atrocious. She wiped it off on her pants.

Ailis had come to stand beside her looking over the distant horizon, where the sludgy ocean reached onwards forever. "So, this is where our fair fortress will be?" Peggy asked with a quirked brow, trying to believe this was _actually_ happening.

Ailis nodded. "About 5 degrees north of right–"she pushed her hand over the ocean to point where Kamar-Taj would be built – "there…which reminds me…" She turned sharply to the east, raising her hand, palm-down over the ocean and then pushed down. A shower of light and golden rays burst forward from her palms, splitting apart the black ocean like she was Moses parting the Red Sea.

The golden hills and glowing light from Ailis' magic began to solidify as it rose out of the black ocean, twisting and folding, combusting and crushing, compacting and collapsing, dancing and rising upwards thousands of feet into the air. Rocks were slamming into each other, the sounds of the earth breaking apart to form new bodies of land masses was like the sound of a massive muscle cracking under pressure. It took her a moment to realize Ailis was creating mountains. They were _mountains around Kamar-Taj…_

The mountains rose forward. The scalping slopes of the golden peaks were already beginning to appear on the peaks as they grew. They were framing the entire sky, it seemed, curling out _far_ into the distance. Peggy couldn't even see the end of them now, as the golden-touched hills stretched far out beyond the horizon. They began to round off in some places, looking like sleeping bodies of people, resting down within the fluffy clouds that now seemed to clump to the peaks from the snow's precipitation.

And as Ailis' stone giants grew, the ashy beach the two of them stood upon began to push itself upwards from the heavy upwards pressure of the mountains' growth. Peggy shakenly took a step back, fearing the ground beneath her feet would split open and she would fall into what remained of the sludgy ocean below.

Ailis stood back, tucking her hands into her robe, observing her handiwork as the world around them changed its face completely. The mountains kept rising and the golden light of Ailis' original spell began to fade, even as they continued to grow. The newborn Himalayas were rising steadily into the pink-gold sky of the sunrise. _The first sunrise on a newborn Earth._

 _In all the years of my life…_ Peggy's eyes darted to-and-fro from mountain peak to mountain peak, trying to record this remarkable event in her memory forever. "How…?" She asked softly, her eyes still caught on the peak of the mountains before her. Her voice, usually bold with unflinching accusation (even when there was no one to accuse), was tiny after the grandness of what she had just witnessed. Peggy didn't think she had ever felt so small. She had known Ailis was powerful, but the sheer _majesty…_ of what she had just witnessed. That was…an act of the divine. A God.

"It's as I have always said, Margaret, a force of nature as yourself cannot be undefined. We must discover the full-extent of it. And that means going back to the beginning, establishing it with the dawning of Time."

There were tears on her cheeks, she realized. Tears from witnessing the dawn of a new Earth, created by the hand of a woman she had come to admire and value deeply. "Why make such an example?" She asked Ailis softly, turning to face her teacher with bright and unsteady emotions shimmering in her eyes.

"To show you that this – all of this – " she gestured to the newborn Himalayas before her – "can be done by the hand of a human woman. You see, I did not have the time or the luxury to wait for the forces of gravity, erosion, and all other natural forces to do what I could do on my own in," she pulled out her _IPHONE?!_ and glanced at the time, "in twenty minutes."

This was a joke. She had literally just created a legendary mountain range and now was looking at her _cell phone?!_ "Not to be cheap, love, but how could that possibly help _me?_ " She could sense this, of all the worst possible times, was one of those moments when Ailis would never really answer her question, just cryptically babble about the grandness of life for the next hour.

"Because you can do it, too." Well, at least, she was straight-forward.

Peggy burst into laughter. "Ailis, I am not a sorcerer, by the Queen's sake, I can lift things with my head – that is not sorcery."

Ailis was simply staring at her with _that_ look. Over the course of the past five months, she had coined it 'the magically inept idiot' look because she gave it to Peggy quite _a lot._ It's when she expected something, and figured she would have her expectations met, whether her target thought so or not. Her green eyes – not warm, but not icy either – met Peggy's with a stony resolve. "This isn't sorcery—this is discovering the limits of your own power." She stopped speaking for a moment, a strange look passed over her face that Peggy hadn't ever seen before, and then, without warning she ripped off the Eye of Agamotto from around her neck. Ailis walked over to the edge of the cliff they were standing on and held the Time Stone over it by its golden cord.

Panic rose up in Peggy as gooseflesh broke over her skin, she took a step forward, trying to decide whether she should leap for the stone or tackle Ailis. "Ailis, please…" She may have wanted to destroy it before, but now… Now, things had changed. The world had changed. And if Ailis threw the Time Stone over the cliff, would their reality _exist_?

"Who discovered the force of gravity, Margaret?" She asked her, her eyes giving no indication as to whether she would drop the stone or not, her hand was unreasonable steady given the circumstances.

Peggy's eyes remained on the stone, but she managed to answer: "Isaac Newton, but that hardly touches the point—"

"And what is the first law of Newton's 'gravity'?" Ailis interrupted her, her eyes cutting against Peggy's.

Peggy swallowed, a horribly worried expression resting on her face. "What goes up, must come down."

Ailis smiled – a terrible, all-knowing, too-smart smile. "Right." And before Peggy could react, she was dropping the stone into the chasm where the black ocean – now a racing black river – swam below.

" _Nooooooo,"_ Peggy raced forward, hands outstretched, her force of power reaching desperately outside her fingertips. She felt the Stone's mass within her own and _pulled,_ sprinting forward to catch it as it flew upwards into the sky. She leaped up, levitating only slightly, and clasped it between both hands as she fell down onto the ashy rock beneath her. Breathing heavily, she managed to sit upright, giving the Ancient One a look that could have slaughtered thousands.

Her teacher, as she expected, was merely smirking at her panic. "So, what were you saying about Newton's gravity?"

Peggy groaned and pressed the stone to her forehead, closing her eyes in sweeping irritation. "For God's sake, Ailis, what is your _bloody_ point?"

Ailis came to sit beside her. Despite her eyes being closed, she could feel her body heat permeating off of her against the artic chill of the newborn Earth around them. Against her better judgment, a piece of herself calmed down a bit when Ailis was near. She had an incredible ability to _know_ what you needed, but never act as if she was privileged for knowing it. "Newton discovered gravity, Einstein discovered relativity, Hawking discovered the black hole, etc. etc. – all geniuses who studied thousands of years of pre-recorded data to discover something that was always there, right?"

Peggy didn't answer, as she knew there was more coming. Ailis went on: "But my point _is,_ the laws that they 'discovered' are not absolute truth. All laws can be changed, all forces are not defined, and you, my dear Peggy, cannot afford to sit by and allow your own ability to be floundered by what you can merely _understand._ The human mind understands very little, but our souls are made out of a different kind of mettle. How else would we know we are meant for grand _radiant_ things?" She gestured to the golden-peaked mountains before them.

Peggy felt tears prickle at the back of her eyes and she furiously blinked them away, not willing to cry a second time over something so superfluous as pretty words. "What do you want of me?"

Ailis smiled. Her point had been made. "You're going to make your own." She vaguely threw out a hand towards the mountain range before them.

The telekinetic gaped at her. "Pardon, my darling, but I believe I misheard you. You want me to—"

"Move a mountain." She pointed to one of the smaller lumps in the front of the range. "Once you do that, I will know you are ready."

* * *

Despite T'Challa's protests, the Dora Milaje had taken to hiding the royal children and the Queen under the earth – deep within a bunker. Bucky was there, too, sitting solemnly in the corner of the operations room, watching as Peggy, above them all, ransacked the royal city and killed everyone and everything in her way.

"We can attack her on the East Wing," T'Challa was rapidly speaking in Wakandan, "meet her behind – draw out her defenses. She'll think that's the last of her worries until Okoye and Ayo come from the front and attack."

Shuri frowned. "Brother, it will do no good – she will see us coming. She channels energy fields; she will sense mass and density before she ever sees it. We need something to disable her ability, something to distract her, while we bring on an attack."

Bucky, who had been quietly, in agony, watching the scene unfold before him. T'Challa and Shuri both arguing as to what strategy they could use, but they all knew it was pointless. They were grasping at straws. _Who gets to die first…_ That's essentially what it had come down to. He wasn't about to let that happen. Not when Shuri had brought him back from the brink. Not when T'Challa had forgiven him for the unspeakable acts he had committed. Not when either of them deserved _any_ of his mess. This was between him and Peggy, now – neither of the royal children.

"She's not gonna stop until she gets what she wants." Bucky said quietly. His voice, which hadn't been used in hours, was gravely, hoarse.

Shuri frowned. Her quick-wired brain already knowing what he meant. "No." She said soundly, leaving no room for argument. She crossed her arms. "No, we will figure something out, Sergeant Barnes."

Bucky chuckled softly to himself. A sad, broken little smile fiddled itself onto his face. It looked like a broken mirror, reflecting only parts of the mashed-up stuff inside. Him and Peg. Always. They did always manage to come back for each other, didn't they? "Maybe. But you have to accept, Princess, this is the easiest way." He adjusted his sling around his arm, offering her that sad smile in return for all her worry and concern. _She's waiting for me…_ "Once she has what she wants, she'll leave. She'll never return. And even if you try to go after her, you won't catch her, the damage she's done won't be reversed, and there won't be any retribution – for any of us…" He swallowed and shifted his eyes from Shuri to T'Challa's: "But she can be stopped. Just give her what she wants."

"Sergeant Barnes…" Shuri pleaded.

Bucky offered her a warm, heartbroken little smile. He hugged her tight against him, while his eyes rested on T'Challa's over Shuri's shoulder. The King, his soulful brown eyes locking onto Bucky's, gave a solemn, confirming nod.

It was settled then. He let go of Shuri and gave her a wink. She was crying. "Hey, do me a favor, kiddo," he offered her glance that tried to say everything, a thousand thank yous – _thank you for saving me thank you for protecting steve thank you for being kind thank you for being someone willing to make a difference thank you for teaching me how to have a friend when I thought it would never be possible thank you for having all the ambition drive excellence and hope in the world –_ an impossible number of things he owed to her, but he knew a meaningful look would never cover everything, "when you all talk about heroic and self-sacrificing I am, call me Bucky—that's my name, more than a rank in the military ever was."

Shuri couldn't help but offer him one last tiny laugh, tears running down her face. "Typical white boy—always needing to be a savior."

Bucky, turning to go, looked over his shoulder, grinning ear-to-ear as he walked out: "Aren't we the worst?" The doors of the bunker closed behind him. This was it.

Five minutes later, Bucky was outside the palace in an empty city square. The people had run for cover when Peggy had landed and started throwing people off buildings. You know, usual stuff. He walked a few miles out, down the main street of Zana, out of the city walls until he reached the bright green, grassy fields that surrounded the famous city walls. His goats he had come to tend to for the past few months, were all peacefully mulling beneath the hill he stood on. His shack was another mile or so down a ways. This had been the place that healed him primarily – long hours in the sunshine, throwing sacks of freshly-harvested grain and produce into carts for them to be taken back to the city. _Harvest the crop, harvest the best of man._ T'Challa had told him seriously. Bucky had had to laugh – that was some shit Steve would say. He could see why the two got along so well.

As he stood on the hill, scanning the fields around him, he caught sight of _her_ sitting in a patch of wildflowers, petting a lamb. That was a sight – this powerful assassin, with a large M16 rifle swung over her shoulder, sitting in the flowers with a lamb sniffing her cheek. But just like always, she took his breath away. There were only two people in the world who could leave him feeling like the entirety of his internal organs had been rearranged just by breathing in their air. She was one of them.

Bucky began to walk down the grassy hill to stand a few feet before her. There was still several feet between them, he trusted she would make up the distance when she was ready. He looked down at her, studying her face – a cold, icy mask fit over her features. He smiled a bit at that. Because the thing is, she could fool everyone, the best spies in the world, even, but she couldn't fool him. He wasn't sure what rested under that marble cover on her face, but he knew it was something more than ice.

"Hiya, Peg." He said softly, a gentle smile coming to his face. His dimple showing a bit as he did. That boyish little grin still capable of showing up, even after all this time. "You've seen some better days, huh, toots?"

Her icy expression broke apart, even if just for a moment, and she offered him the tiniest of smiles. "I could say the same to you, my…my darling." She said softly, her voice caught on 'darling.' She looked over at him from above the lamb, her eyes tracing the empty place where his metal arm used to be.

"Oh," he looked over at his armless socket and faintly smirked, "c'mon, Peg, I can totally pull the pity card now." He grinned at her, daring her to come out from behind that stupidly serious expression on her face. "Who's ever gonna want to fight the cripple? If you do, you're a total asshole."

Peggy laughed, a loud and bright sound that rang out in the empty air. "Bucky Barnes, you could bloody-well bludgeon someone with your pinky toe."

"Not my pinky toe. That's probably an exaggeration. It would at least take all five of my toes."

Peggy was giggling, now, laughing like a maniac at his awful humor. She hadn't laughed in so _long_. He could tell. She was still laughing when the tears came to her eyes. She shook her head and swallowed, falling silent. "You know why I'm here, James."

Bucky offered her downcast face a small, yet bright smile. "I do. You have a job to do, don't you, Peg?"

Peggy was frowning, her face squelching up into a soft sob, as she took a deep, clenched breath – the kind that only ever precedes a sob. She offered him the tiniest of nods. A confirmation. She was still going to do it, and no amount of lame jokes could talk her out of it. Fair enough.

"I don't think I can do this..." She said through a tightly restrained voice, keeping herself from breaking down by mere tethers. One wrong word from Bucky, and she knew, she would lose her drive. Her motivation. Even if she meant to do it for the sake of _saving_ him.

"Yes, you can." Bucky responded without question. He took a step forward, raising his arms in surrender. "You never did anything without reason, Peg, and I doubt you'd start now. Do what you have to do."

* * *

 **JUNE 2011 (** _ **kind of**_ **)**

Peggy screamed in frustration as she fell to her knees in defeat, her head coming to slump against her chest. She would never move that _fucking_ mountain. Truth be told, she had been at this stupid game – waving her hands around and murmuring curses to the stone giant before her – for _days._ Ailis had been absolutely no help, either, she would appear for a few moments, only to murmur something cryptically unhelpful. Or, to just _eat_ in front of her. That latter one rather pissed her off.

"So," Ailis, per usual, appeared beside her, "how's it going?"

Peggy groaned at her unhelpful question. She could ask 'how's it going,' but not offer her any advice on how to _move a bloody mountain?!_ "Ailis, why is this bloody necessary? I mean, really, the only thing this will accomplish is show how utterly unfit I am do this sort of magic."

Ailis shrugged. "Mind over matter, Margaret."

Peggy released a louder, more pronounced groan. "Did you just quote _YODA_ to me?"

Ailis' bright, fiercely blazing green eyes glimmered with secrecy as she met Peggy's. "Come. Stand up with me – let's try it again."

The telekinetic groaned for a third time, rolling her eyes, as she came to stand beside Ailis, giving her a distinct dubious look. "This is turning into a particularly vexing little trip we're having, darling."

Ailis ignored her complaint, and instead, went on to review her 'how to move a mountain in five easy steps' lecture. "Now, reach out, hands out-stretched – that's it – and when you go to pull forth the mountain, do you feel the density of it _becoming_ part of you? Alright, then, now shift your center of focus upwards. Like so." She illustrated how the flow of power ran up from the toes to one's fingers, by shifting into a squatting position, only to literally push both her body – and magic – into a dominant upright position. "Now, once you feel the mountain – no, darling, really feel it – _pull_."

Peggy furrowed her brow and focused on Ailis' words. She followed her motions, shifting into a squat, allowing her power to shift up with her – sourcing up from her toes into her belly, where it then ran into her like a faucet bursting forth from a broken pipe. She felt a smile spilling onto her face. _She could feel it._ Her power, her energy, her _force,_ flowing into her as it was meant to. She moved upwards as her power shifted with her, running on into her hands, balling up and solidifying.

Her power spilled out into the world around them, searching for the massive stone giant before them. "That's it…" She whispered. "Find it." And then she felt it lock into place – her power had wrapped itself around the behemoth, all she had to do was _tug._

And she did. With all her might.

She pulled forward all of her ability and then pulled the incredibly dense object back to her. She felt her brow beading with sweat as her features clenched up in effort, her teeth sunk into her bottom lip from biting down so hard. She could feel a low moan come out from between her teeth as she pulled. Her fingers were shaking, the air around them was quivering, the Earth and all its newborn ground was vibrating as if it might break open.

But it never did.

She sunk to her knees, painfully drained, but still _pulling_ the mountain forward, trying to bring it close.

 _I swear_

She could feel the mountain, it was-it was…could it really be…?

 _to all that is holy_

The blood was gushing from her nose, racing down her face like a cascading waterfall turned red.

 _on heaven, earth, and Satan's bloody shite pile_

The tips on her fingers began to dissolve as her power, the energy of her force began to consume her. She was going to disappear, but she didn't care because she

 _I will do everything in my power_

She closed her eyes, barely clinging to consciousness.

 _To protect that man._

She released one ear-popping, noise-canceling, dramatic scream as she fell face-first into the dust.

Did she do it? _Did she do it?!_ She opened her eyes and weakly turned her head up from the black dust to look towards the small lumpy mountain before her.

It. Hadn't. Moved. An. Inch.

"No…" she whispered quietly, tears streaming down her face as she sobbed into the earth. " _Nooooo…"_

Ailis helped her sit upright, gently hoisting her by her shoulders, but didn't come to sit beside her as she usually did after her last failure of the day. "Try it again." She said softly. Her voice was almost pleading as she told her student as she always did, to pick herself back up, make a downright arse of herself, only to fail.

And Peggy had had enough of that. "No." She sniffed, wiping the blood ferociously out from under nose. It only smeared across her cheek as she did so. "I'm _done,_ Ailis. I'm finished with this ridiculous little lesson of yours. It's not going to do me or Steve or _James,_ for that matter, any good."

"You want to save them, but you don't want to do the work—is that what you're telling me, now?" Ailis asked quietly, not with any particular accusation, but Peggy had known her teacher long enough now to know there was accusation, even when it didn't sound like it.

Before she could even temper it down, Peggy's rage boiled forth—hard, white, and hot. "You would _dare…_ tell me that I'm not _willing_ to do the 'work,' as you call it, to save the men I _love?!"_ She was suddenly standing, screaming at her teacher, not caring if she sounded inept. She grabbed Ailis by her collar and pulled her violently against her, their faces dangerously close to one another. "You know _nothing_ of the lengths I have gone… I was _willing to destroy the entire reality of Time for the sake of_ them _."_ She screeched, throwing her teacher backwards into the rocks behind their small camp.

She walked forth, back towards where she had thrown Ailis, and the ground beneath her feet split apart with each step. Peggy barely noticed, her rage engulfing everything, even her control over her powers. When she was standing above her, Peggy ripped Ailis off of the ground, practically yanking her collar bone out in the process. "You know _NOTHING, DO YOU HEAR ME!?"_ She screamed into her face, slapping her hard. Ailis' face was thrown the other way from the impact of Peggy's slap, but her expression—icy, cold, and unforgiving—was unchanged.

In a fluent motion, Ailis tore Peggy's hands off of her shoulders, gave Peggy one last stinging look of indifferent ice, before she turned and began to gather things up around their campsite. She snapped her fingers and the tent they had been sharing began to roll up into a neat little ball.

"Wait…" Peggy suddenly felt the guilt run over her. "I'm sorry..." She cried, her tears were fresh and already coming to her eyes before she could say more. "I didn't mean it…" She weakly tried to explain.

But the Ancient Ailis showed no desire to hear any form of apology Peggy had to offer her. Her actions were quick, inconsolable—Peggy had crossed a line, something she couldn't ever undo. She tried to reach for her mentor, but Ailis shoved her back with a powerful wave of magic. "You wanted to destroy Time, Margaret Carter, that much is true—but destroying an Infinity Stone is _easy_ compared to what the future has in store. You herald that you are strong, loyal, committed, yet, you lack _purpose.._. You've forgotten why _you_ made that promise." She gestured to the mountain with an ancient frustration beginning to line her face. It was the first time Peggy thought she looked old. "How do you plan to face the Titan that will come and take everything you love? By throwing a tantrum?" Ailis smiled, a cool cruel smile, and curled the tent tarp up into a roll and swinging it over her shoulder.

Peggy stood and watched her forlornly. Her beaten face and sad eyes said it all.

"Unless you rediscover what it is that made you make _that_ promise in the first place, I doubt you'll do much else besides remain a forgotten fossil." She smirked and opened the Eye of Agamotto.

Wait.

What was she doing?

The green light began to shift forward as Ailis was engulfed in it, the light swallowed her up, and then she was gone.

So, that's how Peggy ended up on that cliff face, on prehistoric Earth, 4.563 billion years away from the people she loved. She hadn't eaten anything in two weeks…and her clean water supply was dwindling. It would only be a matter of time until her lack of food and water caught up with her.

When Bucky appeared, she knew she definitely didn't have much time. Despite how wonderful it was to be swept up in his arms, to hold him close to her, to have another chance to hold him and never let him go…he was a figment of her malnourishment. She was dying.

"Don't kid me, Peg." He was saying to her. "You and I…we see each other…always." He smiled _that_ smile. The one where she could tell he was a little sad, his soul a little frayed at the edges, but the incredibly valiant source of hope that glimmered there was breathtaking. _Your eyes are like the stars._ She had once told him, long ago, when they both still had their souls. _I look up at them and I see…something true._ And now, looking into his eyes – whether real or imaginary – was still like looking up to the edge of the universe and seeing the entirety of it _unfold_ before her.

Peggy chuckled and leaned her forehead against his chest. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine them somewhere besides a barren Earth. "My teacher thinks I can do this impossible thing, Buckaroo, but the thing is," tears welled up in her eyes as she reopened them, glossy and golden against the light of the rising sun, "I've _tried_ so many times…to do what she asks of me… And I just _can't. I can't."_ She sniffed hard, her face crumbling with utter defeat. "And part of me… Part of me thinks she has a point—how can I protect you, protect Steve… If I can't do what I need to?" She looked up at Bucky, her heartbreak was shimmering like an unmerciful sun in her eyes—all sharp, visceral, and unrelenting.

Bucky frowned at her words. He let go of her, only to slide his hands down to hers, taking them in his. His two flesh hands, engulfing hers. They were warm and secure as they intertwined in-between her own fingers. "You always do what needs to be done, doll. After all, that's a helluva promise, and it's what's gotten you this far."

The telekinetic frowned at his words, her eyes shifting from his down to their hands. So, _this_ is why she had brought Bucky to her—not because she was scared of her own inadequacy, but because of her terror in failing to uphold that ancient promise she had made so long ago. "I thought it did…but what if I've changed too much?" She asked softly, afraid to answer the question herself.

Bucky frowned at that, himself, as if he, too, was concerned she may not be able to. "I can't answer that." He said softly, his eyes rising back up – out of his thoughts – to meet hers. He smiled a little bit after his own grim words. "I know that doesn't help at all, but Peggy…" He paused, trying to find the right words to define the space between them. "Everybody changes, and for better or for worse, ya gotta except that, babe." He smirked a little at that, tenderly squeezing the lobe of her ear with his forefinger and his thumb. "But the fact that you're still trying…makes me think you know the answer to that question. No matter who are now, who you were, who you _will be_ ," his smile brightened, "I will _always_ think the world of you."

Peggy smiled back at him through her tears, breaking their hands apart to hug him one last time. "Thank you." She said softly, moving her eyes up to his with a weepy little grin on her face. "For reminding me who I am." She didn't need him anymore, and when she looked up over her head to meet his eyes again—he was gone.

She turned back to the mountain; the new-dawning sunlight poured across her face as a resolve like the backside of thunder shifted darkly across her face. She was going to do what had to be done if it killed her.

Because she always did what needed to be done.

* * *

Peggy had her eyes locked on Bucky's. She wanted nothing more than to run to him, but they both knew she couldn't. The M16 rifle was in her hands, ready to be locked and loaded, ready to kill the man she loved more than anything.

There were silent tears running down her face as she tried to bite back another sob, swallow another agonizing wave of emotion that rolled over her. "Steve will never forgive me." She cried softly, shaking her head. "He'll never forgive me…" Her shoulders were shaking with her cries.

Bucky frowned at her words, his eyes actually _sympathetic_ for her. He was as rare as they came. "Peggy…" he offered her a half-dimpled smile at her words, "we both know, between you and me, Steve's gotten to be quite the master of forgiveness."

Peggy, again, couldn't help but offer a snotty little laugh through her tears. "He's such an idiot."

Bucky nodded, his smile only growing. "He is, but he's _our_ idiot. And we gotta protect him, right? Even if that means hurting him."

Peggy took a deep breath in and nodded in agreement. They had to protect him. She had to protect _them._ She composed her face as best she could. But the blotchiness, the swollen eyes, the tear stains on her cheeks – all of it still remained, despite her effort to hide it. She sniffed hard, locking her eyes on his. "Please close your eyes." She whispered, barely audible, but between the two of them.

"No, because then I wouldn't get to see ya." Bucky gave her his trademark smile. The smile of a boy who had done nothing besides follow her and Steve onto the frontlines, a boy who had done nothing to deserve what had been done to him. A boy who deserved all the love in the wolrd…and she couldn't give it to him. Indeed, there was a true radiance to Bucky Barnes.

She hadn't been expecting that. Her breath caught in her throat and she fell to her knees, dropping her gun, her hands going to her face. "I can't… Bucky… I can't do it…" She sobbed, shaking her head. Her words were garbled through her cries.

In seconds, Bucky was there, pulling her against him. They were both on their knees then, holding one another up, holding each other, arms tightening and tears intermixing. His fingers were lacing themselves in her hair, as his metal arm came to cup the back of her head. She buried her face into his neck, holding him around his chest and weeping without control. "Yes, you can." He whispered into her ear. He kissed her earlobe. "You can do it. I'm here. It's okay." He took a shaky breath, and for the first time, she heard the heartbreak in his own voice. "It's gonna be okay. Peggy—"

A knife was suddenly jutting out of his heart. Bucky took a final gasp in, unable to exhale, choking silently as he inadvertently made tiny, guttural sounds with his dying breaths. She swallowed hard, closing her eyes tightly as sobs wracked her body. She tightened her arms around him as she clung to his weakening body like a mother clutching their dying child. She wouldn't let him die alone.

She did what had to be done.

* * *

 **JUNE 2011**

Peggy struck her legs deep into the earth like she was planting herself as some kind of massive tree that would extend across the face of the earth. She spread her arms out before her, fathom-length and looked up to the sky, taking a deep breath in. The Earth was waking beneath her and she could feel the ashy soil beneath her toes begin to tremble as it felt her power streaming out into the natural elements.

 _I'll always think the world of you._

She brought her face down, her jaw setting tightly as she gritted her teeth with a fiery determination licking across her face. The mountain looked like it had shrunken a few hundred feet. It was as she had expected – she was the _destroyer_ , chosen to do what had to be done, and she would. She brought her arms to reach out in front of her, feeling out for the dense mass of the mountain before her.

And when she felt her power lock onto it, she swallowed, adjusted her stance, careful not to be overly eager as before. This time, she would bring it forth to her – in _her_ time. And absolutely nothing would stop her. She leaned in, shoulders tensing, her legs bracing for the impact of her force pouring out of her.

She closed her eyes. Cleared her mind.

Then, she let the memories in. _Thousands_ of them. _Millions_ of them. Of a life she had so violently, abrasively locked away for 60 years. And she let it flood in.

Bucky laughing over a fire after a fresh-fallen snow.

Steve's eyes meeting hers. He switched his shield to his other hand so he could hold hers.

Her little sister, Mary, squeezing her hand under a table.

Emilie's breathtaking kaleidoscope eyes.

Steve whispering into her ear that he loved her as Bucky took her hand.

Two little children, bleeding across the floor in a Vietnamese village.

Her mother telling her she was beautiful.

A frail, blonde-haired boy giving her a smile brighter than the celestial heavens.

Bodies upon bodies; all of them drowning her in blood.

Steve moaning as he came inside of her.

Bucky sandwiched in-between them.

The three of them.

A snake, circling across a universe, eating its own tail.

 _Together._

A blinding light bursting forth through a dark, starless sky.

 _Always._

When she reopened her eyes, there were tears glittering there, just above the rims of her eyelids. They looked like starlight nestled up against the darkness of her eyes. Her eyes were the universe, swallowing up the world before her. The Milky Way, nebulas, black holes, newborn planets, and exploding stars – all of it was reflecting in her dark as night eyes. She had seen something within herself; a true, undefined radiance that had never once been touched.

Until now.

 _I will always think the world of you._

For a moment, the Earth held it's breath in, waiting for her to reach out to it, waiting for her to make contact. She would make it wait _for her._ The entirety of the universe could wait if only just for a few moments more.

Peggy was calm, steady, and then without warning, she broke into motion, her arms swinging out in front of her as she viciously, mercilessly pulled the massive stone giant to her. _I will always think the world of you._ Her mouth opened up into a gaping silent scream, as the mountain began to shake, the rumbling crack of the Earth opened up as it began to _move._

Her power, usually translucent and webby, sparked forth into a bright, vibrant lavender as it soared across the sky and wrapped itself around the peak of the rocky leviathan, ushering it forth towards her. It was moving, groaning under the weight of millions and millions of tons of stone. And as it moved, stone from other mountains began to shift and fall into place on top of the moving stone creature. It began to grow, engorge itself on fresh sediment, and widen in size.

All along, Peggy was standing above the moving mountains, screaming into the air as the mountain came towards her like some slow-moving tortoise waddling across a predestined course.

It was bigger than all of them now, taller than any of the surrounding stony hills, towering above them as it clung to its new-found height like a queen. It picked up in speed as Peggy dragged it across the terrain to right before her. And as soon as it was over, as soon as she had finished, she dropped to the ashy earth ground, breathing heavily, sweaty and exhausted.

But she had done it. She had moved a goddamn _mountain._

 _I will always think the world of you._ A small, crystalline tear slipped down her cheek. "Thank you, my darling." She whispered to the air, knowing somewhere across time and space, Bucky would hear her.

Behind her, she heard the tiny tingling sound of a portal being opened. _Ailis._ She didn't even flinch when her ages-old mentor came to stand behind her, tucking her hands into the pockets of her afghan. There was a long silence before Ailis spoke: "Do you know what mountain that is?"

Peggy spit out a clot of something – _rock?_ – out of her mouth, looking dryly up at the massive giant before her. It was so large, you couldn't even see the peak of it now, as it had soared up into the clouds. "Mountain of Pain." Peggy said groggily, pressing her forehead into her hands.

"Nepali Sagarmatha–or, as we English call it, Mount Everest – the highest mountain on Earth, on any planet, in any galaxy, across the entire fulcrum of the universe…and _you_ made it, Margaret Carter. You created the largest, most significant rock formation in the universe."

Peggy didn't even blink, turning to lock eyes with Ailis. "I did what needed to be done."


	19. I Love You

**A/N:REREAD CHAPTERS 5, 10 & 15, IF YOU DON'T REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED – THEY'RE INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT FOR THE EVENTS OF THIS CHAPTER.**

* * *

Natasha was not sentimental. Not unlike Peggy Carter – who was seemingly closer to her training than she originally thought – the infamous Black Widow had murdered in cold blood and never thought twice about it. But even after her time as the Widow, she _still_ didn't feel regret for what she had done – rather, a certain amount of emptiness. She had robbed people of their lives and sucked them into herself, taking them, collecting them, counting them down in her ledger of red. It wasn't guilt that she felt, when she finally came home, but a multitude of voices and lives she had absorbed into herself. Who was she with all these thousands and thousands of souls screaming inside of her? And why did they suddenly _matter_ so much?

It was never about redemption in her mission after the Red Room – it was about defining who she was above all _those_ screaming voices inside of her. Who was she based on her _own_ voice? She took a long time after that realization to rediscover her emotions – to uncover who she was, or maybe, who she _used_ to be. _We're like a kind of copy, I think._ Barnes had once told her as they retired from their sparring for the day. _We're based off of somebody else._ Natasha had smirked at his words, giving his metal arm a playful shove. _Since when did you get so poetic?_ Her friend had only given her one of those sad, but hopeful "I'm not sure if I'll ever find the answer, but that's okay" Bucky Barnes smiles.

But staring at the TV in Clint's living room, watching the face of her friend appear across the screen, Natasha felt a rare moment of emotion. And for a moment, she allowed it to rip into her. She allowed the onslaught of memories to tear her apart, ambush her, overwhelm her: James' smile as he looked at Steve – all that pure, unadulterated love in his eyes; hugging her after years and years of separation with his arms tight around her _we made it out alive, Natalia;_ the crushing, entirely too heavy guilt that sat in his eyes as he stood before a grave of a man he had killed _I did this_ he had said Natasha only touched his arm; and the goddamn _belief_ that rested within his smile, a smile carved out of hell and agony. Mournful, silent tears rolled down her cheeks.

 _We're like a kind of copy, I think. We're based off of somebody else._

And that's where James Barnes beat her – she never felt regret for what she had done, but Bucky felt that regret and _lived_ with it. He _grew_ in it, flourished in it, became _better_ because of it. _We're based off of somebody else._ Natasha stifled a sob as she walked out of the living room, slamming the door behind her, stumbling blindly out into the empty field behind Clint's house. She tripped and fell, catching herself with her hands as she sobbed softly into hard soil beneath her palms. _Yeah, we were, Barnes. But you were somebody_ better _than who you used to be._

* * *

 **JUNE 2011**

Peggy slung the M16 rifle around her back as she stood in front of the mirror. She was back in her room in Kamar-Taj, getting ready to leave after her long training under Ailis. It was time she moved on – there was much to be done. But looking at herself now, with _that_ rifle, with the tightly-woven braid, and the thick combat boots that could have crushed a windpipe – things that should have felt familiar – suddenly felt foreign. They didn't belong on her. This wasn't _her._ Tears welled in her eyes. How could she _leave_? Leave the place that made her feel human after an eternity of feeling like a prisoner inside of her own body. Moving mountains was nothing compared to going back to HYDRA – submitting herself to the soul-crushing labor after _so long_ of being free.

 _I will_ always _think the world of you._ Bucky. She shifted her eyes back to meet her own within the mirror, finding a single tear had begun to make its way down her cheek. No, it wasn't a question as to how she could leave Kamar-Taj and Ailis' kindness. It was a question as to how she could leave _him_ for so long? Her heart ached in her chest. It had been months already. He'd still be under the ice; HYDRA wanted to keep him locked up for another few years until he was ready for realignment. But when they pulled him out…would he even know she was gone? That she wasn't there to protect him? Emi would do what she could, but even Emilie with all her power and psychic energy couldn't control Bucky. Not forever, anyway.

Besides, Emilie wouldn't be around forever, as it was. Emi's soft, flower-like face flashed across her vision; her kaleidoscope eyes staring back at her from a plethora of memories. Peggy, _promise me, you'll burn my body._ A kiss under the night sky in Paris. A twist of her heart. Emotion. Feeling. Years and years of dust shifted off of her heart as Emilie yanked her open, commanding her to breathe once more. _What are you bloody talking about?_ Emilie had laughed, crying, sobbing, coming together and splitting apart all at once. _Love._

Suddenly, she was back in Paris months before. Peggy had grabbed her, shaking her to stop with the nonsense.

 _Emilie._ "Emilie, stop this – we could be seen. Speak. _Intelligibly_."

Emilie, tears still afresh in her eyes, smiled softly as she began to unbutton her jacket. It was a typical European Harris Wharf jacket – usually quite too bland and professional for Peggy's tastes – but on Emilie it looked dramatic, elegant. Perfection as all things Emi wore were. Peggy raised a brow. "Darling, I'm flattered, but _now_ is most definitely not the time nor the place. Please, can we—" but her words died on her tongue as soon as she saw what Emi was hiding. For beneath Emi's elegant and expensive fabrics, glowing golden and bright within the center of her stomach, brilliant and blinding, the light only softened by the flesh around her organs, was a _stone_. No, not a rock. _The Stone._

Peggy's mouth dropped. "Is that…? Emilie…" Her breath quickened, panicked and split, as her eyes rocketed up to meet her partner's eyes. "Your father."

Emi's eyes welled with tears as she nodded, a heartbroken and undeniably broken smile grew across her face. "He wanted an all-powerful daughter. So, he stole the Stone. Right from under God's nose, it would seem." She sniffed and chuckled. "When I'm gone—"

"Stop it, _Emilie,_ " Peggy's words were tight and thick with raw wounded anger, "stop."

"When I'm gone, burn my body. You stop the Titan, save the people you love, and I—"

"You _die_." Peggy screamed at her. Her breath hitched in the back of her throat as a furious wave of tears shivered in her eyes suddenly. "You wreckless, miserable mess, you—"

"But I die for _you_." Emi's words were glowing, shimmering, laced with all the mad and tragic affections of a romance she had grandly imagined. This cruel, unforgiving woman who had ruined Peggy's life for years…was _changing_ in front of her eyes _._ Experiencing the first and last of her emotions. She felt human all at once, Peggy realized.

Peggy shook her head as tears fell from her eyes as she grabbed Emi's face up in her hands, her fingers shaking. With an angry, inconsolable expression, she smashed her lips into Emilie's, bringing her petite body up against hers. Her bare chest was icy up against Peggy's warm, hot skin. They were suddenly escaping past a threshold of normalcy, running across a bridge they could never cross again. HYDRA was behind them and the entirely of everything was before them. The universe was nestled between the two of them. Literally. All Peggy had to do was burn the flesh of the one person she needed now, more than ever, and it would be hers.

 _But it's what needs to be done._ Peggy blinked out of the memory and pulled herself back to the present, standing before the mirror in Kamar-Taj. Rebuild everything. Stop the Titan. Save Bucky. Save Steve. She nodded, setting her jaw, and giving one last condemning glare into the mirror. She could do this. She _would_ do this.

She closed her eyes and when she reopened them, M16 was standing before her – armed and lethal as always. She was an assassin. She was a weapon of war. She was an agent of HYDRA. A silent, deadly soldier tasked with taking down the uprising of disorder and democracy. Blood. Carnage. Destruction. These were the weapons she would use to bring them down.

Blood.

Carnage.

Destruction.

These were the weapons she would use to rebuild the world.

She grabbed her bag, swung it over her shoulder, and walked out of the bedroom.

* * *

Natasha had finally come back inside after she had finally managed to calm down to a degree. She wiped the tears off her cheeks with a vicious swipe from the back of her hand, not allowing herself to be seen in such weak composure. Clint and Sam would need her to be strong. They needed a leader. That was her. It _had_ to be her.

When she walked back into the living room, the news was still flashing across Clint's TV like a roll of unwanted propaganda. Wakanda's capital city, Zana, had been hit. Bad. There was still no sign of the royal family – she had guessed there wouldn't. Okoye and the other Dora Milaje would get them to safety, away from the spotlight and cameras, away from the publicity. Once the smoke cleared and the body counts were totaled, they would be needed to help the country reorient itself after this…after Carter.

 _God…what was she going tell Steve…_ She covered her eyes with the a tired hand, scrubbing her face in an attempt to unsee the damage the news showed. As with the news of Bucky's death, now all she could think about was Steve and the way _he_ looked at Barnes. The way he really _smiled_ at him like he was finally getting rid of that goddamn weight of the world off of his shoulders…like he was coming _home._ How would he even cope? Peggy, the woman he loved, had killed the man he loved. Goddammit. The tears that glittered in her eyes in the light of the TV were quick and ferocious, simmering there above her eyelids like boiling water.

Why was she _doing_ this? First, Alexi, Pepper, Clint's family…and then, _Bucky_? It was almost like she was cutting off edges, pieces, _limbs_ of who they were and – Wait. _It couldn't be true… All that blood just to prove a point…_ But she knew that was exactly the case. Blood didn't have a limit when it came to proving points – especially, on this grand a scale. Her eyes suddenly cleared of tears as the liquid dissipated like hot amber hardening into a solid. A grave anger began to seep into her eyes, her spine, her legs as she rooted herself to the floor, her arms folded up with a concrete denial. _Soviet starvation._ It was like the last click of a puzzle-piece being snapped into place. "This is…It's a game…" She muttered, blinking the last of her tears away.

Clint and Sam, becoming alive from their frozen states as they grimly stared at the TV, both turned to look at her.

"The plan – Peggy's… Peggy's plan. It's… It's old school." Her thoughts were coming to her quicker than her words were.

" _Your_ old school or _my_ old school? Because those are two very different things." Sam commented from his heap of pillows on the couch. He had gotten successfully up a few times now, making his way to the bathroom and back without much help from the two of them. Sam was good at playing off the agony he must have been in.

"Russian intelligence… It's… They call it Soviet Starvation. You target the parts that don't matter to get at what _does._ Oldest plan in the book."

Frowning, Clint seemed to slowly be piecing together what she was saying. His eyes shifted to meet hers as he was thinking it over. "You think it was a long game."

Natasha's eyes were lost in thought, the brilliant greens of her irises were glazed over with a complicated, wild sense of thought. Clint knew that look – she was processing 10,000 different strategies all at once. "I _know_ it was. Russia hacked Estonia's elections in 2007. There's riots, public outcry – the entire market drops overnight. Russia learns they can't cause a scene; nine years later, what happens? The U.S. election is hacked. In the _exact_ same way. They learned. Got over the firewalls, used better strategies than the last time, and they got what they _wanted_."

Clint nodded along with her. "Just cause the target's a long ways off, doesn't mean your aim has to be." His eyes were sinking in resignation.

"Exactly."

Sam frowned at her words, his face crest-fallen, soft, and hollowed-out with fatigue. "What are you sayin', Nat?"

"T-They… Laura, the kids, Pepper, James… They weren't the targets – _we_ aren't even the targets." She moved her eyes to meet Sam's, their eyes collided like two cars losing control on a freshly-soaked highway – brown clashing into green. The emotion that flooded her eyes was visceral, _real_ , and entirely too close. Sam felt hot just holding her gaze. "I was wrong. I made a mistake." She swallowed deeply as if she needed to summon everything within her to speak her next words. "She's not going to kill Steve, but he _is_ the target. He's _always_ been her endgame. The Avengers are already torn apart – why not drag Steve Rogers' name straight through the mud?"

"We need to find him." Sam said tersely, his words were tight and thick as if they could have lifted ten tons of steel. The determination wedged within each syllable of that sentence made Clint shiver. "That wound he's got – it's bad, _real_ bad. He ain't gonna last much longer with it."

Clint cleared his throat. "You know there's really only one person who can find him."

A video of Tony Stark flipped across the TV as he was addressing some reporter about Pepper: "I don't care who she _is_ ," he spat, the veins in his neck bulged with effort to articulate his words, "Carter killed the one person—" He faltered, his eyes darted from the reporter's, seeking comfort on the floor. "Rogers knows what she did." His eyes found their way back up to camera as he met Natasha's through the screen. "And since, like always the old man feels inclined to not _finish_ things, I'll end this. You take the people I love, you gotta _pay_." His face violently shifted into an expression of simultaneous rage and agony. The broadcast was live, but Natasha knew that it was filmed yesterday.

"He'll kill her." Natasha said softly, feeling the emotion strangle her words, catching them up in a net of tension and grief.

There was a long, solid silence – the only sound was the news as it flipped from the Wakandan tragedy to sports. Sam, surprisingly, was the one who spoke first. "That's somethin' we gotta deal with, Tash – you can't save everybody."

* * *

 **JUNE 2011**

Peggy stood on the snowy grounds outside of Kamar-Taj, bundled up in a long coat to cover up her weapons and artillery that hooked to her sides. Ailis stood before her, bare-footed and barely covered from the icy winds, but she still managed to look warmer than Peggy. "I'll give you as long as I can."

Peggy offered her a small, wan smile. It didn't reach her eyes. She would have cried, but all the emotion had all but run out of her. "I'll only need a couple of years." She was silent for a long moment, staring into the snow. Her vision blurred together as the white became blinding, painful to look at it for long.

"Margaret, leaving the soldier in the ice won't protect him, and it won't stop Thanos."

"But if he stays there, no one can get to him either." She said softly. Her voice was soft, fragile. "HYDRA will find him." She lifted her gaze up to meet hers. "They'll kill him." Her words were breakably thin.

"So, you'd rather he die than live the life he was meant to."

At that, Peggy's eyes watered. Joke's on her – there were more tears to shed. "Ailis, you're asking me to destroy _everything_." Her voice cracked, the sharpness of her words too much for the fragility of her vocal eyes glittered with the onslaught of all that destruction before her.

Ailis met her eyes with only an intensity _she_ was capable of and took her hands. She squeezed them tightly, pressing warmth and solace into Peggy's icy palms. "No, I'm asking you to do something much, much braver than that. I'm asking you, Margaret Elizabeth Carter, to _rebuild_ everything."

Peggy quietly shook her head at Ailis' words, long and heavy tears fell down her face. "What if I can't? What if I fail?"

Ailis was silent for an agonizingly long moment. "Then there will be nothing and _they_ will die."

It was Peggy's turn to fall silent. The tears she had so desperately wished to lock up within herself were falling down her cheeks like the silent snow tumbling down around them. "And what of Emilie?"

"She's chosen her path. There's nothing that can be done."

She shook her head as an enraged, unquieted look of denial shifted across her expression. "I _hate_ you."

Her teacher nodded understandably as if that was a response she expected. She reached out and took Peggy's face in her hands, forcing her to steady the flaming, tumultuous emotions within her gaze. "You'll need this." Ailis shifted her thumb across her cheek bone affectionately, before she leaned up and kissed her forehead. The gesture made Peggy nearly flinch, but then relax almost immediately. A warm wave of some kind of euphoria washed over her. Her veins briefly glowed with a magnificent golden light, lighting up her entire body in brilliant and ascending radiance. She took a step back from Ailis as she looked down at her fading, glowing hands as she felt a sudden power hardening within her. It was as if she had just kissed Steve again for the first time, given James the biggest hug, told her baby sister she loved her. A powerful, glorious feeling of exuberance.

"What…? What was that?" She asked, her eyes shifting to Ailis with suspicion. She hadn't felt like that in a long while.

"A gift." Ailis' words lingered in the air before she nodded off towards the path that snaked down into the mountains. "You best be on your way, my dear girl – the universe is waiting."

Peggy's eyes welled with tears once more. Ailis had just given her something profound and intuitively personal after she had just snapped at her as if she was an insolent child. Once more, teaching her warmth and kindness right up until she left. "Thank you, Ailis, for _everything_."

The Ancient One offered her a smile – a strange, ethereal smile of omnipotence and mostly things not meant to be spoken. It was heartbroken, full of joy, and unsettling all at once. "Be _well_ , Margaret Carter." Peggy thought she spotted tears in her eyes, but before she could fully see them, her teacher had turned and was gone as quickly as she had come.

As she stood there, the snow lightly falling down around her, Peggy had a feeling that was the last time she would see her.

* * *

 **NOVEMBER 2011**

Phil Coulson had dealt with a lot over the past few years. First, there was that whole stint with hot-shot Tony Stark, then the thunder god, Thor, who apparently was big into doping. Now, he had this – an old, yellowed map of Greenland left on his desk. No one knew where it had come from or whose map it had been – he had simply stepped out of his office for a lunch break, only to find the map spread out across his keyboard. Circled in big black ink was a spot that made his blood run cold. He knew those coordinates. He had _studied_ those coordinates.

They were the last known sighting of Captain America, the great and forever-lost Steve Rogers. What did this mean? He flipped the map over and saw a note scrawled on the side. _Find_ him _._ He swallowed. How in the hell…?

He reached over to the interconnected communication device on his desk, sliding his thumb over it, and quickly finding Nick Fury in the contacts. He instantly connected with him, speaking quickly, "Sir, there's something you should see."

* * *

 **DECEMBER 2011**

Dr. Carter Atwell was a tenured anthropologist employed at the University of Oxford. She specialized in artic digs from old, icy cultures of the North and South Poles. When Director of SHIELD, Nick Fury, had contacted her he had sounded skeptical: "You know, I didn't know that anybody survived in the artic."

But Atwell had assured him, while it was rare, there was surviving evidence of cultures and peoples who had once dwelled on those desolate, frozen lands. He asked her if she had any experience with newer "peoples." "How do you mean, sir?" Her posh, Oxfordian accent fully accentuated each of her vowels in lovely, snooty sounds.

"We got another frozen guy, but he's probably a lot newer than what you're used to."

Atwell smiled secretly to herself as her eyes shifted outside the window of the warehouse she had holed herself up in along the streets of D.C. "Oh, you'd be surprised as to what I'm used to, Director Fury."

A week later, Atwell was leading a team of engineers and SHIELD agents through a blinding snowstorm in Northern Greenland. She cut ahead of all them, quickly moving through the snow as if it didn't even phase her. The SHIELD agents with her were convinced she was some kind of super soldier. But despite her physical capability, Atwell's heart raggedly beat against her chest like she was out of breath. She felt as if she was walking into a terribly wrong situation. This was wrong – all of this wrong.

They should have left him alone.

They should have left him to rest.

This wasn't _right_.

They would only endanger him.

They would only –

 _Then there will be nothing and_ they _will die._ Ailis' words echoed in her ears through the blistering, artic winds bellowing around her. "I know." She whispered into the frigid air around her. "I know."

A few meters further, she came to a stop. This is where he was. This is where she _knew_ he would be. All those years ago, this is where she had planned to come and rescue him. She and Howard would have taken a ship, cut through the icy landscape, and found him sleeping soundly within the ice. She would have brought him home, warmed him whole, taken care of him… _protected_ him. They would have had a life together.

She sunk into the frozen ice and laid her hands up against the solid ground. She could feel him through the ice, feel his heart beating up against her palm as if he was right below her. "Hello, my darling." Tears came to her eyes, freezing to her cheeks instantly as they rolled down her face. She should've worn the ski mask that hung limply in her hand, but it was forgotten in that moment. "It's time to wake up, Steve." Seventy years apart and now he was right beneath her fingers. And yet, he couldn't have been further.

 _I could just pretend like I got the wrong coordinates. We could all just go home. Leave him be._

 _I love you, Peg._ That was _him._ Telling her he loved her a thousand years away, still _changing_ her life, even after all this time. "I love you too." She spoke to him, running her fingers through the thick icy snow with a strangled expression on her face. Well, that was it, then. Now or never.

She turned to the team that was lagging a good distance behind her, waving her hands wildly. " _OI—boys, I got something!"_

On the plane ride back home, Phil Coulson stood over the miraculously dethawed body of Steve Rogers. He was astoundingly _still_ alive. Coulson's eyes were wide with amazement and wonder – this was the guy, _the_ guy. The super solider. Captain America. His hero since childhood. He could still remember watching his cartoon when he was kid, collecting all the Captain America memorabilia he could. He still, in fact, did collect Captain America memorabilia. Just last month, he stayed up until 4 a.m. on eBay trying to outbid some kid for a vintage set of Captain America cards. Please. Like he _wouldn't_ win.

The anthropologist who had found him, Dr. Atwell, came to stand beside Coulson. She offered him a soft smile. "Agent Coulson." She glanced down at the soldier before them. He was hooked up to at least ten machines and blood was being _pumped_ into him. Another month down there and he would've been truly gone, the doc was saying. They couldn't have saved him. His blood would have been entirely frozen, his heart would have stopped, and the oxygen to his brain would have run out completely. It was downright miraculous that Atwell and SHIELD had found them when they did.

"He's amazing, isn't he?" Coulson said with a glowing tone of admiration as he watched over the Captain with a look of pure bliss.

Atwell couldn't help but offer a whimsical, little laugh at his admiration. "He is quite lovely." Those words were simple, soft, and half-said in laughter, but it sounded like she personally knew him. If it wasn't impossible, Coulson would have thought she was an old friend. Coulson turned to look at her, finding her silent and watching Rogers with an unreadable expression. Her gaze was glossy as it remained on his sleeping, undisturbed face. They had finally managed to cut him out of the suit he'd been wearing and stuff him into a set of comfy clothes. He was bundled under blankets, had three high-powered electric coverlets wrapped up around his body – anything to keep his body temperature up. Coulson had to say, the guy looked _warm_.

"You okay there, Dr. Atwell?"

When she turned to look at him, there was a shimmer of something within her eyes. Coulson would have guessed they were tears, but he couldn't tell as she wasn't standing close enough. "Take care of him. Please. He may be a man of war, but his heart…it's _soft_." She took a shaky breath, removing the glasses from her eyes. She used her jacket sleeve to scratch at her bright brown eyes. God, Coulson loved the Captain, but as a fan…not as a… Well, he wasn't sure how to describe _this_.

But something about seeing this woman upset about Rogers' protection –it seemed like it was much too important to be forgotten. He oddly found himself feeling the ache in her words, sympathizing with the weight of her emotions. Sensing her turmoil, he leaned over and squeezed her shoulder. "Dr. Atwell, he'll be safe. I _personally_ promise, I'll watch out for him."

Atwell raised her eyes to meet Coulson's and for a moment, Coulson was taken aback. Those bright brown eyes, the tender smile – it was all so familiar like he had seen her somewhere before. But that couldn't be true. He had just met Atwell on this mission, not from somewhere before. _Right_?

"I apologize for my outburst…I just… I suppose I'm a bit attached is all. I feel as if he's a friendof mine."

* * *

 **MAY 2012 – SHORTLY AFTER THE BATTLE OF NEW YORK**

A woman in a black hoody stood in Central Park, watching from behind a tree, as she observed the newly victorious Avengers shake hands in the courtyard of that vast green space. It was their first real triumph as a team and the woman in the black hoody had been there every step of the way, watching them from around city corners, standing on neighboring balconies. At one point, she had even managed to cop a ride on a helicopter, following the infamous Black Widow down the surrounding byways of the city. She knew they didn't need her, Ailis had said they wouldn't, but she wouldn't let that stop her from still keeping a careful eye on them.

It seemed like something had just finished up within that moment. Some grand, prophetic moment in those six people's histories as they all sort of acknowledged one another. This moment made them connected, attached, inseparable, in some ways. They weren't friends just yet – that had to come with time (they had just met each other, after all) – but they weren't strangers, either. It's as if they could all feel their sense of importance to one another, their tangled genealogy. It was as if they were all soulmates, to some degree. Some brought across the stars, across worlds, across dimensions, time, space, etc. – they had crossed divides to be by one another. Yes, maybe they were finished, for that moment, but they'd be back. Because the world would _need_ them.

And afer that long, golden moment passed, Thor took the arm of his mischievous brother, whipped his mythical hammer into the air, and blasted them up into space, the woman took a tentative step back at the sight of the flashy lightshow. Unsure how to approach all _that._ Well, she had seen stranger things. There was Natasha Romanoff – and she certainly looked _very good_ in _that_ leather jacket. Moving on. Clint Barton – the Hawk. Bruce Banner and then, of course, Tony Stark. They were all there. Just as she knew they would be.

 _He needs a team. A messy timebomb of a team. People he can lead, protect, shelter. That's what's most important. He needs to_ shelter _them._ She had written the very letter of psychological evaluation that was sent to Nick Fury himself. Because yes, the sixth member of the Avengers team, their Captain, Steve Rogers – needed to nurture people. She knew that better than anyone. _Perhaps you can teach a man to feed himself by teaching him to fish. But give Steve Rogers a team and he'll teach himself to be human again._

That had been written without actually _seeing_ Steve. Despite what Fury believed, it wasn't hard to switch out the real psychological evaluation with the one she had written. Why was everything still paper in SHIELD? Why didn't they just send a bloody email?

Her eyes followed Stark as he walked over to shake the Captain's hand, his face gearing up for that iconic smirk he was known for. She'd seen that smirk on the cover of _Time_ magazine after he had flipped off a Senate Intelligence Committee a few years ago. But she wasn't focused on Tony at the moment because her eyes had found Steve.

 _Crikey O'Riley._ He was… He looked like… Well, she would have scolded herself for such a dramatic description, but it just so happened that the sun had chosen to fall across the back of his hair in a halo-like fashion. Typical Steve. Looking as if he had just stepped from some kind of beatific cult image of an ancient saint who had been long dead. His hair was combed over and he had managed to snag another brown leather jacket in this century, too. That made her smile. He looked healthy, strong; he looked _good._

Tony said something to Steve, which made him nearly double over in laughter. Even from this distance, she could tell his eyes were twinkling with that chocolate-chip, gooey-warm Steve Rogers' mirth. He nearly fell over when you made him laugh that hard. It was one of the things she had loved about him. He was the strongest man alive back in the day, but when you got him cackling, he nearly collapsed.

She stepped back into the darker part of the grove. He was happy. On his way. He had his team. There was only one more thing left to do.

* * *

 **MAY 2013 – MOSCOW**

M16 was leaning over the sagging, exhausted body of James Barnes. They were both covered in Emilie's blood. Her decapitated head lay somewhere off to the side, while her body had been flung across the room. She took Barnes' face in her hands, pressing her lips up against his. That time, he didn't refuse her, instead, he gave in. Recognizing her, he responded to her rhythm – their kiss becoming long and distinct. She pulled away, her lips coming to rest up against his ear. She whispered something and Barnes' face cleared of all confusion and grief.

A single word.

A single word to reveal all.

" _Steve_."

One word. One _name_. One name that meant everything to him.

"Do you understand?" She asked him firmly. Bucky Barnes mechanically nodded. Of course, he understood. He had _always_ understood. Steve. _Steve._ Steve. A confirmation. A rebirth. A biblical prophecy fulfilled. Steven Grant Rogers.

He _knew_ him.

* * *

 **MAY 2013 – D.C., LATER THAT WEEK**

"Now," M16 turned back to Pierce, who was no longer smiling after she had just shot his newly replaced rookie. "Still think I'm 'incapable' of leading HYDRA's combat forces?" She cocked her head with a nasty little smirk crossing her features. Another quirk or two of her face and she would have split it in half with how sharp her smirk was.

Pierce sighed heavily. He was seemingly unsurprised with her killing of the squadron leader, but not really happy with the fact that he was unsurprised. "Carter, don't make me regret this or I will personally make your life-"

"A living hell. I know, I know, but luckily for you, love, you're not the first to make that promise." She paused for a moment to let that sink in, not that she had seemed to care that he wasn't, in fact, the first to threaten her life, before she went on to make her case: "Now, Alexander, I have an idea, and we're going to do it because it's the best one you, me, or anyone else in the entire history of HYDRA has ever had."

Pierce chuckled at her insolence—such charm in arrogance. One wouldn't think the two would go together, but they did. In fact, she taught him that, many years ago. "That's a big tree you're barkin' at, Carter, you got anything to back that up?"

"You and I swore to uphold HYDRA and its survival, my love," she reached out and straightened his tie in an ambiguously maternal way as if she had done that same action 100 times but in 100 different scenarios, and not all of them in the public eye. Her eyes reached up to meet his, as a smile coiled across her features like a snake stretching itself out on a rock in the sun, "But what if we could do more for HYDRA than simply survive?"

He frowned, raising an eyebrow at her proposition. "You mean break from SHIELD?"

"SHIELD is HYDRA, Pierce, all I want to do is cut the ribbon and show the world who we really are." Her hands were still gently resting against his chest.

"You'd be asking for a revolution, and that's a fulltime job, Carter, you up for it?"

Peggy Carter met his eyes. They were the eyes of the man she had shaped and molded and formed by her own hands. She had taken this plain, yet lovely white block of clay and spun him around until he was what she wanted him to be. And in doing so, she had broken him into his shoes here at HYDRA. He rose in power and rank, pay and grandiose, all because of her. He owed her, and he knew it, but he would never admit it. She offered him a smile, the same one she offered every man who challenged her. "More than willing, darling, and I think I know the exact place to start."

The man with the metal arm.

"Send in the asset." 16 probed at him, nodding with a ruthless sense of assurance. She knew exactly what kind of net she had to set, but Pierce would take the bait if she was smart enough.

Pierce scoffed at her words. "He's basically an animal, at this point, Carter. He won't respond to capital commands, he _just_ killed our most valuable agent – I'm not about to let him anywhere near this operation."

"That's why you send him into assassinate Nick Fury."

At that, her perfectly formed block of white clay turned to meet her eyes with a small but interested frown. "Fury, huh? You think that'll do it."

"Let me handle the operation, I'll pay off some pirates looking for work – Fury'll want the intel. Set him up, make it look like he was privatizing the sale of classified intel, and _then,_ Barnes gets sent in. At some point, America's little watchdog, Rogers, is bound to ask questions – he can't keep his terrific little sniffer to himself, believe me. Barnes crosses off Fury, Rogers is thrown off by Barnes. That makes it the prime time for us to make our move." She listed each of the scenarios off of her hands casually like she hadn't given it any thought. But the two of them both knew, she could defend her plan easily, if probed on it.

It made sense. It was smart. Succinct. It wouldn't cause much ruckus – Fury would be out of the picture, that would be even better… Pierce was quiet as he came to lean up against a marble arch looking like a bloody cover model for Ralph Lauren. He took off his glasses and tapped them up against his lips with a deeply pensive look on his face. "Why not you? You'd be better at this than him. The emotional turmoil would still be there. Plus, I know you're not gonna go rogue."

At that, 16 smiled, a velvety, deeply concerning smile. It was chilly, icy, and perhaps even a little jealous. While her heart was frozen solid, the bitterness of being second-place still remained. "He didn't love me as much as he loved James Barnes, Alexander. Trust me. The emotional trauma will rip him to shreds."

* * *

 **PRESENT DAY**

Tony Stark pulled up to Clint's farmhouse in one of his super cars. He made sure to park within two inches of Clint's front porch, nearly touching the bottom step. Of course – he wouldn't be Tony, if he didn't do what he wanted. He got out of the car, slamming the door of the Audi with an angry _BAM._

Natasha, who had been reapplying Sam's bandages looked up to see him coming up the front steps. She exchanged a look with Sam to stay put. Tony would be the most upset with her, but maybe that was better than having Sam or Clint deal with his moodiness. She quickly moved outside, coming face-to-face with her old friend and teammate. He looked… Well, that was probably the worst she had seen him. No snazzy glasses, no lazy, but overly expensive jacket. He was just in jeans and an MIT t-shirt. It looked frumpled like he hadn't changed for several days. The bags under his eyes were concerning, and the grease in his hair… Blagh.

"Tony." She crossed her arms and placed her legs shoulder-width apart. She looked strong, rooted, tree-like.

The 'mechanic,' as he often preferred to be called, cocked his head and gave her a ferocious look of rage. "You said it was important. Rogers on his deathbed and whatnot."

"She took him." Natasha nodded glumly as she looked into his eyes. Her own green eyes met his brown ones – both sets reflected a similar hardened and torn-up sense of self-worth. God, how many times had it come down to this? The two of them, seeing eye-to-eye and recognizing that the other one felt the same. The fact that her and Tony Stark, of all people, seemed to relate on more and more occasions was slightly terrifying.

Tony sniffed and shook his head, biting his lip in melodramatic fashion. "Oh," he tsked, "who saw that one coming?" The sarcasm was scathing. He wasn't joking – it was an attempt to wound her.

Natasha sighed heavily, feeling her gut spin out with untapped tension. "Tony, do you think I wanted him to chase after her? It's _Steve_. He's blind to the people he loves."

For once, he was silent. He was a lot quieter than most people thought. Especially, in moments like this when he was just _upset._ Upset and _angrily_ silent. Sure, he was the guy who could spit out a cheesy one-liner at any given moment, but that was just how he threw off everybody else. With Natasha, and her piercing eyes and steady gaze, he knew he couldn't hide himself behind some quippy line. "You obviously think I'll let her off the hook. Scott-free. No sciffy, _nada_ ; she's a free-elf when we get to her, right?" He shifted his eyes to meet hers, crossing his arms and leaning up against the railing of the stairway.

"I don't think that. I called you because I knew _you_ wouldn't."

Frowning, Tony shook his head. "I'm sorry, I don't have much…" He rolled his hand out in a gesticulating motion, while rolling the 'ch' on the end of 'much' as he looked for words – "Of a knack for the mind games today, Spider-Woman. I haven't been sleepin' much." The hand that had been lulling in the air came to scrub itself across his face, pulling his features down with an exhausted motion. "…probably because I'm thinkin' of all the ways I want her to suffer. After what she did." He cocked his head back up to look at her expectantly as if he wanted her to say something, to judge him, to _condemn_ him. "Pretty dark, huh?"

Natasha shrugged it off in a dismissive motion, a small smile coming to her lips. "You're talking to the wrong girl for all the dark and gloomy stuff, Tony." She stepped down to be level with him on the same step, still standing an inch or two above him. She always liked that she was taller than him – it made her feel like they were somehow on the same level – like they were equal, connected in some unknown way. "I don't have to be the one to tell you that revenge isn't going to bring Pepper back, but I know that doesn't matter to you. We need your help more than I care about Peggy Carter's life."

Tony's face had gone hard at the mention of Pepper. His eyes, usually brown and bronzy, had gone all but black. He looked like something had come and cut him straight through, sliced him down the middle like he was some kind of gutted fish. "I don't wanna to kill anybody. I just want her back. Carter's gotta _pay_ for that." His words were mangled up in his throat like a foot caught in a bear trap. Natasha could hear the gnarled emotion within his voice. She _knew_ what he felt deeply.

She reached out and touched his shoulder, her fingers wrapping themselves over the folds of his t-shirt. "Help us find Steve and then, you and I, we take down Carter. Steve doesn't have to know how it ends."

* * *

 **MAY 2013 – MOSCOW**

M16 stood over the black body bag that contained her dear friend and partner Emilie. She stared down at it with a blank expression. _Burn my body._ A frown deepened across her sharp and distinctive features. _She's chosen her path._ With an emotional sniff, she leaned over the bag and unzipped the cover, pulling it down just enough to see the pale and cold stiff face of Emi. The HYDRA doctors had stitched her back together well enough, but the stitching was clear around her neck.

 _I wanted to scream and scream and scream and scream and scream._ Instead, she simply stared down at her with a blank expression. _My heart felt like a million pieces shattering all out of place, falling apart in unresolvable ruin._ She crossed her arms and swallowed, her eyes plainly tracing the veins along her pale, white throat. _I remember kissing along those veins as if they were rivers to which I wanted to drink from your beauty, your love, your perfection._ She reached out and pulled the zipper further down, revealing her naked, perfectly molded body. _Those hips that were fleshy enough to scoop into my hands, those thighs that I had traced my fingers up and down, feeling my way into you. I loved feeling you beneath my fingers, I loved kissing you, I_ loved _hearing the sound of your voice within my ears, I wanted to spend the rest of all my life—_

16 zipped the bag up in one motion, hiding her partner's face from her eyes once more. She closed her eyes and found herself needing to be steadied as she gripped the sides of the steel slab. It was so damn _cold_ in here. She looked up to see the thermostat was set at 10 C. Too bloody cold for even the dead. She scooped the body bag up and threw it over her shoulder. Emilie not weighing much even in death. _Burn my body._

 _I will, my dear love, I will._ The sound of her combat boots clicking against the linoleum tiling was the only sound to be heard. But perhaps it was loud enough to wake the dead.

* * *

 **APRIL 2014**

M16 watched from below the last remaining SHIELD helicarrier. She was anxiously awaiting near the bank of the Potomac, hoping Barnes would snap out of it. Even from this distance, her highly-sensitive vision could see the two of them were struggling, fighting on the deck of the sinking helicarrier. What if she got it wrong? What if Steve couldn't get to him? What if Bucky – No, she wouldn't allow herself to go there.

It would be fine. She had planned it down to the very last detail. He would wake him up.

He would wake him _up._

And then Steve was falling from the sky. Falling. Falling. _falling. FALLING._ "No. _NO."_ She leaped into the river, powerfully cutting through the murky water until she saw, to her great shock, Bucky dive in after him. The Winter Soldier gracefully popped up from the water, carrying Steve up against him. _He did it. He… He saved him._ She felt tears blur her vision. _He was free._ But she didn't have long to celebrate as Bucky would see her. She wasn't sure if he'd even remember her. She didn't need him to. He had Steve back. He no longer needed her. She quickly moved to the other side of the bank, dragging herself up onto the river sludge.

Bucky swam to the other side of the river, pulling Steve safely onto the beach. He dropped him by his uniform strap and stood over him, staring wildly like he couldn't believe the man in front of him was real. _He is. He_ is _real, my darling. And he's yours…_ all _yours._ Bucky bent down to make sure Steve was breathing, pressing his ear up against his mouth, before he stood back up. He looked uncertain, unsure, terrified. Should she call to him? _Just stay with him._ She wanted to scream, but Bucky backed away.

No.

 _James. Stay. You need to stay_

And then he was walking off down the shore, glancing back at Steve with a small, perturbed glance. She knew that look. _I don't deserve it. I don't deserve_ him. She wanted to chase after him. She wanted to scream at him. She wanted to throw a rock at his head and _make him stay._ But she knew she couldn't. They'd make their way back to each other. Eventually. Steve wouldn't be able to stay away, and Bucky wouldn't run forever. She closed her eyes as a massive weight was lifted off her chest. They were both okay.

 _They were both alive._

 _Breathe_. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Reopening her eyes, she saw Natasha Romanoff had appeared on the opposite bank, she knelt down beside Steve. She expertly felt for a pulse and called into her radio for help. It was time for her to go. _Leave. Peggy. LEAVE._ But she couldn't. Not yet.

It would be ages before she saw him again, if she _ever_ saw him again.

She'd make one last stop.

* * *

 **MAY 2013 – MOSCOW**

It was Russia. It had snowed. The ground was barren. The air was frigid in a way that made M16 believe Spring, and the warmth it offered, would never come. In Russia, she would have believed that. Winter, clutching onto its bitter chill and severe winds, often refused to move over for Spring. Perhaps that was appropriate for the day, though. As standing in a wooded clearing a few kilometers away from the HYDRA Moscow HQ, she had lit a fire – a massive one, full of kindling and kerosene. It had looked more like a violent inferno of flames than a classically tamed campfire. Perhaps the Universe understood what she was about to do.

With an unceremonious gesture, she plopped Emilie's body into the flames. She didn't want to see the flames burn the flesh from her bones, incinerate her face and form, burn away every remaining landmark of her lovely face. She wanted to run away, to leave behind whatever it was that Emilie wanted from her…but she knew she couldn't. She had made a promise. A promise forged when they were both inhuman beasts, seeking for a shot in the dark, begging for scraps of love and affection, wishing upon stars within a dark, dank ancient city. That made it all the more sacred, 16 supposed. It was a promise made out of pure and utter lunacy – a promise that shouldn't have been made. An unholy, sacred, holiest of the holies promise.

She watched the flames consume the black bag before her, swallowing her grief, but failing. "You never got a chance to live, Emilie." She said softly, watching as the logs shifted to accommodate the shifting weight of the burning body. "And I'm sorry I didn't do…" She sighed and closed her eyes, feeling a tear run out from under her eyelid. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you. I thought that I could," she reopened her eyes and the flames glittered and flickered off of her shining tears, "but I couldn't. I couldn't."

Suddenly, feeling weary, M16 sunk to the floor of the forest, kneeling before the fire that burned the remains of her dear friend, her partner, her soulmate of some kind or another. The flames crackling up within the glossiness of her irises reflected like the Alaskan Northern Lights flickering radiant colors of hazels, golds, bronzes, organges, purples, and browns. "I don't want to lose you." A whisper, a confession. "Because the truth is, Emilie, I don't know if there's a single person left who _knows_ me. You know, _really_ knows me. I wanted to be better, I wanted to be a hero. And I thought I could…play this game, live _this_ life…but I don't even remember who I was before it all started. All I have are these promises. Stupid, ugly, mewling promises that mean _nothing._ " She felt herself choke over the last of her words, nearly splitting down the middle with a screaming, ragged anger carved out of her grief.

 _Why her?_ Perhaps it was a joke. They both had slaughtered so many, perhaps the irony was meant to be funny. Mourn for the one who killed so many, cry little for those who never asked for it. But that was the entire point – Emi had never truly done those acts. She had forgotten who she was; all that power, all that cruelty, all that survival over the course of years and years and years… She had lost track of who she was. Not in the sense that she "lost" herself – Emi was very self-confident and entirely self-preserving. But somewhere between the bodies, the blood, and the violence – she had forgotten who the woman was she used to be, could have been, _would_ have been.

"All this power, all this love for you, and I did _nothing_." M16 whispered to Emi, feeling the exhaustion of 70 years finally, condensely, compactly, collapse onto her shoulders.

* * *

 **APRIL 2014 – LATER THAT WEEK**

Mercy Hospital was where Captain Steve Rogers was being held for his injuries. His doctors said it was a miracle he lived. Falling from that height, smacking into the water at _that_ angle, dragging himself to shore after extensive brunt-forced trauma… Yes, it was a miracle he was alive. But anyone who knew Steve, knew he wouldn't have died that easily. The man was frozen for seventy years in the artic – he didn't just "die."

Sam Wilson was seated beside the sleeping super soldier, reading a newspaper, as he saw the TV above Steve flipped to a newscast of Natasha Romanoff. He smirked at the cocky, sideways smile the double agent was giving a Senator. "Oh, this oughta be good." He grinned and dropped the paper on the end table beside Steve's bedside.

"You're not gonna put me in a prison. You're not gonna put any of us in a prison. You know why?" With each demand, Natasha was rocking her head, emphasizing each syllable like they were whips to be thrown. Sam had the target of that look, that demanding, cold-as-ice look, and it _wasn't_ fun.

The Senator, a plain, dry-toast white guy, sighed and crossed his arms. "Do enlighten us."

Natasha's cocky smirk quirked to a serious, dangerous expression. "Because _you_ _need_ _us_. Yes, the world is a vulnerable place, and yes, we helped make it that way. But we're also the ones best qualified to defend it. So if you want to arrest me, arrest me. You'll know where to find me." She stood up swiftly, gave a shrug, and walked out of the hearing. Damn. Sam shook his head at the double agent, finding her more surprising with each day he knew her. He better be careful around her. If he wasn't, he might just end up falling in love.

Moments later, the woman herself appeared in the doorway of the room. She had run to the bathroom a few minutes beforehand – the hearing had taken place the day before. She smirked up at the televised hearing. "How you think that's gonna go down?"

Sam rolled his eyes – like she _didn't_ know. That girl knew the kinda shit she caused. He stood up, stretched his arms up in a longitudinal movement, and then brought them down to crack his back with a satisfied _snap._ "I'm sure someone's gonna get their ass canned from that little stunt of yours."

"Mm. You're probably right, not my problem." She looked behind Sam to eye Steve's unconscious form. His face was swollen and coated with bandages. "Still no progress from the big guy, huh?"

Sam glanced back at Steve, crossing his arms across his chest. "Eh. Doc says he'll be fine – just needs to sleep it off. Even if he was awake, he probably wouldn't know we were there. They got his ass on the good stuff."

Natasha nodded and tried to hide the worry on her face, but it was clear she cared for him more than she let on. "You wanna go get a coffee?" She asked Sam suddenly, raising a brow. "It's on me, and uhm hospital coffee is pretty good these days, I'm told." She smirked cheekily.

Sam grinned. Yeah, alright he'd play along. _Don't get caught, Wilson. Don't get stuck up with this girl._ "Sure, I could use some grade-A hospital machine-made coffee."

Natasha jerked her head towards the door with a genuine smile beginning to form across her face. The two of them walked out, while a doctor with dark glasses and a white coat walked in a few moments after they had gone down the hall.

The doctor, a woman with dark curls pinned up above her head and bright chocolate-colored eyes, shoved the glasses up on the crown of her head. She closed the door behind her, setting down the clipboard she had been carrying on the table in the back of the room. She came into the room and stood over Steve's bed. While she had seen him out of the ice, this was the first time she was _close._ Close enough to see the perfect soft molds of his cheeks, the sweet curve of his lips, the new haircut he had gotten (and it was, in her expert opinion, _quite_ sexy). She took a few tentative steps forward, afraid to come too close. He looked _so_ breakable. For a moment, she could see the sick boy he had once been – battle-hardened against a common cold.

Should she even be here? She looked behind her towards the door. It was best to let him sleep. Let him rest. She looked down at him, feeling her heart skip a beat. _Oh, my God…_ Tears welled in her eyes. It was _really_ him, wasn't it? She shook her head with a stirring, heartbroken motion, as her face crumpled up into revelation. _It had been so long…_ Centuries. Ages. Eons. Long enough to grow apart from who she used to be, only to recognize that who she had been was by his side all along. A flood of memories poured into her like a warm swallow of sweet honey.

Perhaps these past few years she had been pretending, lying to herself that it wasn't actually him. It was the only way she could truly fulfill her mission, without dwelling on his safety. She had created the best possible situation. She had given him Coulson, the Avengers, she had sent in Bucky. She had carved out a path for his _protection._ But when it finally came down to this moment, where it was just her and him, standing mere feet apart…she realized…all at once, he wasn't her "target" she had sworn to protect. He was the funny, goofy Brooklyn-native she had fallen so completely in love with. The young soldier who had taken out the nail of a flagpole, versus trying to climb it. The boy who had no idea how to talk to women. The man who loved his friends more than any far amount of fame and fortune. The boy named Steve. _Oh, by all of heaven… It was him._

 _Steve._

 _STEVE._ She reached out to him, wanting suddenly to touch him, to feel him beneath her skin. Her fingers carefully traced down his arm. The tears began to fall down her face in solemn, unsolicited waves. She took another step closer to him, coming to sit on the side of his bed. "Oh, _darling, it's been so long…"_ She shook her head, as her wandering hand came to rest on his cheek. His flesh was soft, warm, _real_ beneath her fingers. "Steve." She spoke his name on a prayer, a dumb awful, horrible prayer somewhere between hope and agony.

And then, as if God was real, his eyes sleepily opened. As soon as he saw her, an exuberant, drowsy grin burst across his face, nearly cracking it in two. "Peggy." He instantly went to sit up, but his face reacted with a sudden pained "ohhhh."

Peggy, with tears pouring down her face, half-laughed, half-sobbed at his reaction. "My love, lay back," she whispered to him softly, "lay back. I know I look good, but you're much too weak yet to be all up in arms over that." She gently pushed him back down into the pillows behind his head.

Slinking back down into the comfort of the plushed-up pillows behind him, he glowered at her with an upset expression as if she had just crushed his biggest, brightest of dreams (she had to some degree). "Peggy, _Peggy,_ " he said her name with a drawn-out sound like he was trying it out on his tongue for the first time. " _No_ , Peg. _My_ Peg." His face brightened as if he had figured out some noble doctrine of another time. He had, in a way, that was what he called her. Not Peggy, most of the time, _Peg_. "How are you…how are you here…?" He asked her with an adorably clueless expression. "Am I _dead_?"

Peggy chuckled through her tears once more, swallowing a hard lump in her throat, she ran her fingers down his face. "No, nothing like that. Think of it as a dream of sorts." She had a hard time meeting his eyes. Looking at them for too long was hard, not just because Steve had lovely eyes (he did), but rather she didn't want to jinx her luck here. She'd lose control if she met those eyes. She'd want to give it all up, stay with him, leave behind any such plan she had. It wouldn't be worth it if all she had to do was sit there and stare into Steve Rogers' eyes for the rest of her life.

"Why are you sad? Did I mess up again?" He winced as if he had done something wrong, bringing one heavy hand and placing it over his face like he was ashamed. "Step on your toes while we were dancin'?" He closed his eyes. "Give me another chance, doll, I'll make it up to ya'…I promise." His Brooklyn accent was thick and slurred from the effects of the drugs. He was really going through it, wasn't he?

Stepped on her toes? She frowned. Oh. Oh, _Steve. I still owe you a dance._ She smiled sadly, fighting back another sob. "No, darling, you didn't… I… I'm just sad we didn't get a chance for a longer waltz."

Steve pulled his hand down from his face and looked at her. Peggy could feel him staring at her, she kept her eyes on their interlocked hands. "Peg, look at me." He said it so clear, so free of exhaustion, she thought it was _really_ Steve talking. No drugs, no drowsiness – just Steve. Well, she couldn't argue with him as she came to rest her eyes finally in his. Her eyes were blotchy, unsteady and sad, his eyes were steady and true. Always, true. Even when he was drugged off his merry arse.

His fingers sluggishly moved to clasp around her wrist, pulling her down on top of him. "Honey." He said softly, tucking her tightly up against his warm, sweet-smelling skin. "Whatever it is. It'll be okay. I'm here. I'm _right_ here."

Oh, this _bloody_ arsehole. Peggy hid her face into the confines of his chest, feeling him tighten his arms around her as she sobbed against him. Her hands came up to clutch his hospital gown, fisting handfuls of the fabric in her quivering fingers. For so long, she had tried to see _why_ she held out for as long as she did. Why she had killed, slaughtered, mercilessly murdered thousands of innocents, sacrificed so much, burnt down entire worlds… And now, as she found herself being sheltered and loved once more, she realized: This was it. _Right_ , _here_. In this moment. Because this man, who shielded her from herself, was the only reason for any of _this_.

He was worth it. No, he was _worthy_. He was the reason for _all_ of it. _I swear to all that is holy on heaven, earth, and Lucifer's bloody shite pile, I will protect this boy for the world, in the face of all strife, I, alone, will protect_ him.

"Know that I love you – through all of it – know that I love you." She whispered to him; her eyes shifted up to find his eyes were closed. He was sleeping. "I love you _more_ than anything." The strangled words left her lips, as she traced his sleeping face. "And I'm so, _so_ sorry…for what I'm about to do." Each word was spoken through a soft sob, morphed and garbled with tears. "But I'm doing it for you. It's _all_ for you, Steve." She gave a little nod, sniffing, and trying to recompose herself. It was time to go. She'd been here for too long already.

With the heartbreaking glimmering in her eyes and the tears still fresh on her face, Peggy shifted out of Steve's arms and got out of the hospital bed. She straightened her glasses back on her face and grabbed the clipboard from the table. "Heya, Peg…" She turned back to see Steve was awake, grinning sleepily at her. "You know I love ya' too, right?"

At that, she grinned, perhaps the first real smile in years. "I know." Some little broken piece of her seemed to bend back into place, her heart felt a little lighter, the sun was a little brighter. He loved her – the world could move on. "Goodbye, my darling." Another tear strolled down her cheek with a gentle semblance of a creek running over after rain, the sun, casting through the frames of the window blinds, fell across her lovely features in an array of golden hues and light. It was a new day and it _would_ be okay.

* * *

 **PRESENT DAY – D.C.**

Near the edge of the Memorial Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial, the rogue HYDRA agent, once known as the infamous M16, squatted down to sit on her haunches. Her fingers reached out to feel the chilly, murky water beneath her feet. Glimmers of coins beneath the grimy water showed the promise of well-wishes made by passing pedestrians for hopes of a better day. Peggy Carter, as she had once been called, picked up her head to view the sun as it began to rise over the horizon. Maybe, those well-wishers didn't have long to wait. The dawning of the new day, she supposed, was meant to be symbolic, hopeful. Well, that's just what she had heard anyway.

There was an eerie sigh with the sleeping silence surrounding her. Good. No one needed to be around for this part. She gave a little sigh – somewhere between exhaustion and a frustrated, mood of "can we get on with this?" And then, wasting no time, she reached into the folds of her sweater, pulling from around her neck a golden necklace. The chain was thick, durable, but tightly coiled around her throat. It could have been mistaken for a choker, except for the massive piece of golden rock hanging at the end. She ripped off the golden rock from the chain and held it in her hand, bringing it up to view in the dawning light of the sun.

"Well, you're not much to look at, love, I'll give you that." She stood up and threw the rock, as hard as she could, against the pavement of the walk surrounding the pool. To her surprise, the light burst forth in blinding, brilliant rays. The sun was no longer in the sky, it was beneath her feet. Because within that hunk of gaudy rock, shining brilliantly and irreverently in the face of the golden sun, a Stone had been tucked safely away. A Stone to change _everything_.

* * *

 **MAY 2013 – MOSCOW**

M16 bent over the ashes of her friend, shifting through them with shaky hands. Tears openly flowed from her eyes. _Stupid, ugly, mewling promises that mean NOTHING._ She was shaking her head, visibly weeping with a hunched back as she scrambled through the ashes. Where is _IT?! Where is the fucking Stone?_ The Stone that was worth the life of Emilie. The Stone that had taken her from Peggy. The precious, wholistic Stone of the whole _fucking_ Universe that was somehow now under her protection.

AND SHE COULDN'T FUCKING FIND IT WITHIN ALL THESE EMPTY, POINTLESS ASHES. " _Where is it?!"_ She screeched as she sat down within the still-smoking ashes of Emilie's remains. " _Where is the fucking Stone that you wanted me to have you bloody, ruinous bitch?"_ She stopped searching, bringing the ashy fingers to her face and holding them up against her features. "AUGH." She screeched, standing up and stalking out of the ashes.

What was she even _doing?_

Peggy-M16-Peggy-Margaret, whoever the hell she was, turned sharply back to the pile of smoking remains and glared into the dust and ashes. "You took her from me." She glowered, the fire slowly returned to her eyes. The tears dissipated. She wasn't sad anymore. She was enraged, vaingloriously irate. "Do you hear that?" She asked the Universe. "Do you _hear me?!_ _ **"**_ And with a writhing, unruly sense of hatred for all things, she held out her hand and called forth the Stone. She wouldn't waste the sweat, the effort to find it herself. If the Universe wanted to play its games, it could listen to her. "Give it me. _Now."_

A heavy hunk of gaudy fool's-gold flew up out of the ashes and into her hand. She blinked. Oh, that worked. Well. Yes, of course it did. She uh she planned that. She sniffed and turned to where the sun was rising in the east. Holding up the golden rock to the sun, she could see within, outlines of a Stone, no, a _heart._ A human heart. There were ventricles, aortas, chambers, and a golden light flowing in and out of it like blood being pumped through the very essence of a human heart.

Unexpectedly, tears came to her eyes. "Emilie…you…" She bit her lip as she clutched the rock up against her chest. _You have my heart._ "I'll keep it safe, my love. I promise." A promise that meant _something._ A promise made by the light of the _heart._ A promise made by the Soul Stone.

* * *

 **PRESENT DAY – D.C.**

"Ow. Ow. That's _hot._ " The woman, who had been known by many names, none of which no longer suited her, kicked at the Stone as it plopped into the Memorial Pool water below. "How's that for a wish, eh?" She asked to no one in particular.

As soon as it made contact, the Stone boiled beneath the surface of the water, ruffling the cool, smooth surface of the Pool. "That's it, Emi, come now, love. We haven't got all day." She took out a little glass bottle from her jacket. It looked like some kind of magical, mystical alchemical glass container that once held herbs or rare poison. Instead, it held something much more preciously dangerous.

She plopped the grey, ashy flakes into her hands and blew over them. A fine, dusty spray of ashes flew out over the sizzling pool, overlaying the bubbling water like snow. The light from the Stone, began to brighten sharply, suddenly the entire National Square was coated with blinding, unreal light. It was like looking into the face of God Herself. Peggy covered her eyes from the harsh, unyielding light of the Stone.

That's it. Any minute now.

The ground beneath her feet began to shake as if there was an earthquake. Then, the Pool began to rock wildly, overflowing as an object, a body began to form in the center of it. The submerged object began to float upwards, rising overhead like a falling star that decided to rise back to the surface of the sky. And then, the body began to drop to the earth, diving back into the Memorial Pool.

Peggy took a step backwards – _she'd_ need the room. With a gaping, ungodly shriek that shook the structures around them, the Pool split in half with the water flooding out around the National Square. The figure – the body – leaped forward, landing onto the ground near Peggy's feet. She was sopping wet, fully clothed (which Peggy had to smile at), and exquisitely, irrationally beautiful. Just as she remembered. Peggy smiled down at the girl. "Good morning, my darling."

Laying on the ground, with a wildly confused and slightly pained look on her face, was Emilie Sinthea Schmidt Jones. Back from the dead. Resurrected. _Alive_.


End file.
